I make sculptural instruments and devices which function either actually, or metaphorically. Their meticulous craftsmanship lends them authority as believable artifacts, but upon inspection they may seem absurd, fetishistic, alchemical, or otherwise uncanny and curious. An elusive, esoteric function tickles curiosity, speculation, and tenderness.
Current work results in sculptural devices, accompanying demonstrative photographs, and concisely curated short texts which illuminate their “purpose”. These wearables for the body- tools, or instruments, address the human body’s “energy centers” (also referred to as the “subtle body” in ancient Vedic and Taoist origin), use conductive and insulating materials to manipulate these energies, and function as “coping mechanisms,” for life, literally, figuratively, or symbolically. They physically connect with the body at the site of the energy center, assisting the user to open or close, broadcast or receive, amplify or repel energies. Or, they might simply acknowledge, bear witness, and subtly engage the energy center- assistive accoutrement for processing feelings or a situation.
Tools are chosen adaptations- devised extensions of the body. The body is an interface- the threshold between the interior mind and exterior world. Here, transformation may be invited and cultivated through our senses and awareness. Might liminal experiences including epiphany, euphoria, divine ecstasy [rel. Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Theresa], orgasm, enlightenment, calm abiding, the sublime - be attracted (or shunned) with the right antenna in the right site and situation? Can I build them? Alternatively, might I insulate a healthy body’s energy from corrosive external forces?
Raised and fabricated red brass, yellow brass, and patinated steel 12" x 6.5" x 5.5”
The throat is the center of communication and self-expression, the site for manifestation, transforming ideas into actualization. Related to the chakras of Vedic philosophy, in Human Design this energy center is a nexus- this crossroads may creatively “voice” through its connection with the mind, identity, ego, heart, emotions, gut instinct and/or intuition... from where does one “speak” and is the voice effective?
This apparatus might serve as antenna and amplifier- receiving, boosting, or translating a message. Or, it may act as heatsink - dissipating and projecting energy out; a pressure release. It presses the neck back, opening the throat in preparation for an exchange - giving, receiving, or transforming expression with creative singular voice. The form of the vessel is a collector- metaphorically here, for vibration and sound, filling or emptying with its conductive metal.
Red brass, teak, and felted dog hair
Fabricated sterling and fine silver, felted dog hair (from Killick), sodium borate & boric acid (flame-retardant salt solution) 3” x 3” x 2.25”
This device considers the delicate human heart, acknowledging and massaging it; the action is a durational and attentive witness to heartache through ritual application to its symbolic flames, gently quashing them. The embossed print is a variation on “the Breath of Compassion,” an historic Islamic geometric pattern of tessellating octagons (expansion, inhale) and crosses (contraction, exhale).
Reflecting on nurturing an open heart chakra, vulnerability, compassion, heartbreak, the Mexican sacred heart ablaze, and Dario Robleto’s influential work about the heart, the felted scrubber pad is, appropriately, felted fur from my beloved pet (indeed, the best relationship I have ever had) impregnated with flame-retardant salts that embue the soothing apparatus.
Referencing Christian rituals for ablutions (purification of the body) and mortification of the flesh (to repent for sins through actions upon the body) and their related instruments such as the cilice, hairshirt, spugna, and discipline scourge, this device got its source inspiration from a Victorian silver fingernail buffer I recall from a childhood friend’s family heirlooms that struck me as an absurdly elitist apparatus.
photograph 35” x 20”
silver, copper, brass, patinated steel, cork, and leather 2” x 2.5” x 29” and 28” x 29” x 29”
Relating to Human Design, this apparatus is designed to engage the body’s Sacral energy center- perhaps enhancing or augmenting its authority in specific environments. Its central T-lock mechanism accommodates two choices: the Attenuator cork or the Amplifier/Receiver horn. Energetically, symbolically, or otherwise, this device delivers options, subtlety, receptivity and communion- an adjustment/additive for sacral yes-no gut-response drive. Precious silver, an excellent conductor, is the point of contact of this antennae’s heightened reception or muffled rejection. The belt is very tight; the skin absorbs the text’s impression, a stamp that lingers after the experience.
I make sculptural instruments and devices which function either actually, or metaphorically. Their elusive, esoteric function tickles curiosity and speculation. I continue this in a body of work influenced by the sea.
This “Nautical Body” of sculpture, performance, and drawings has required me to physically become one. I exhaustively researched maritime history and culture to actualize a modern relationship to stories, lore, and tricks and trades of explorers, pirates, fishermen, ‘old salts,’ and sea-steading sailors. It forced me to live the life of my subject -living and working on the 83’ sailing schooner, Mystic Whaler, and later my own 23’ sailboat. This training instilled a rare insight into the “dying art” of maritime culture, practical techniques, and crafts, which inspire the work. The local environment of the Atlantic coast and its rich maritime history inspires and influences the work. I make a contemporary reflection on history and the importance of the sea to culture… with the benefit of hindsight.
hemp and wood, 72”x 36” x 10”
One from a pair of oversized sea chest handles (“beckets”), which embody my foolhardy enthusiasm as a tall-ship sailor. Historically, a sailor’s character and seamanship were judged by the quality of their beckets, a personal masterpiece - though ironically it is a pair of identical masterpieces.
wood, cardboard, leather, ink on plexi, tarred nylon, and copper
93” x 18” x 32”
An homage to first Six Frigates of the United States Navy, which revolutionized Naval warfare, and dominance of the seas. Perhaps you are the enemy viewing the ship from your telescope?
metallic photograph 18” x 29”
Site of the world's largest tidal shifts- the Minas Basin, Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia. Atop my sculptural prop of a ship's ladder, imbedded in the bottom of the ocean, I look out for the sea's imminent return.
graphite and carbon on vellum, glass, polished stainless steel, oak and rope lights
52” x 32” x 2”
The drawings stem from decorative motifs on old, inaccurate nautical charts. They interest me as fanciful entreatments to engage with the false contents within, which led to many maritime shipwrecks and death. The empty center of the drawing is mirror- polished stainless steel. This uncanny mirror-mirror-on-the-wall with its framed frame eerily reflects, with a recursive effect, the modern world in a nausia-inducing bent.
pine wood, steel, and cotton 16’ x 3’ x 11’
My caricature of a ship becomes a drawing/rocking horse/ships ladder. Ascension of the ladder makes for a tippy ride and absurd voyage.
graphite and carbon on vellum 30” x 42”
This drawing illustrates a history of the USS Constitution, one of the first six frigates of the US navy, which introduced a new “class” of warship. She was nicknamed “Old Ironsides” - “Ironsides” - as new engineering layered thick planks of oak in alternating grain patters resulting in unusually tough hull, and “old,” as she lived to a ripe old age having engaged in only a few particularly important battles.
graphite and carbon on vellum. synthetic tarred nylon on frame. 8.5” x 11”
Made from imagery in non-data parts of historic sea charts and maps. These early charts were misleading in their accuracy, but looked convincingly plausible. Richly decorated with sea monsters, people of exotic lands, etc., these peripheral decorum function for me as tricksters, overshadowing truth and meaning in the fallible charts, which often lead to shipwreck death, and financial ruin.
graphite and carbon on vellum, 42" x 42”
mounted photograph, 26" x 20”
On a ship, chafe gear prevents rope or other things from wearing down. Here, instead of protecting the hand, it renders its movement useless while becoming a fetishised garment.
A monkey’s fist is a “heaving line,” a light line weighted at the end that is easy to toss to a pier or vessel. Here I invert its function upping the scale to 3” diameter line, which belies the loftiness in its desire to soar. It is instead a static, imposing figure.
brass, mahogany, and cotton 46” x 23” x 23” 2009
Based on a traditional speaking trumpet, this innovative ‘double trumpet’ version is designed for the schooner shanty singer to project vocally to the lines of sail-raising seamen on both the port and starboard sides aboard ship.
wood props to accompany the popular hauling shanty “Cape Cod Girls”.
“Cape Cod Girls don’t use no combs! Heave away, haul away
They comb their hair with codfish bones! We’re bound away for Austrailia…
Cape Cod Boys don’t use no sleds! Heave away, haul away
Slide down hills on the codfish heads! Bound away for Austrailia…
synthetic tarred nylon 12” x 12”
Tallship sailors, known for their decorative knot-tying handiwork, suffer from constant sniffles brought on by an ever-present chill and sea breeze. This humorous take on a sailor’s marlinespike seamanship project is a beautiful, but useless holey hanky.
Historically, a sailor’s seamanship was judged by the quality or elaborateness of the beckets (knotted rope handles) on his sea chest, and they are considered a personal masterpiece. Ironically, they must be a pair - twin masterpieces. Together, the couple’s bodies here become the metaphorical vessel of the sea chest, and thus they carry each other. However, the resemblance to neck shackles used in the slave trade is evident, also evoking the phrase “ball and chain”.
still from video loop
digital rendering of installation with mirror’s recursive effect
digital rendering of installation with mirror’s recursive effect
“Great Guns” - Christy Georg
The USS Constitution (built in 1797) is the most famous of the first six frigates in America’s Navy, which revolutionized naval warfare by creating a new “class” of fighting ship successful in maintaining the new country’s independence. Imagine entering an interior environment - the gundeck of a naval war ship around the year 1800. It has low ceilings and structural beams you duck under. Naval cannon, called “great guns,” are huge 10-foot long, violently bucking, scalding-hot war machines, operated under a team of choreographed men, with threat of fire, guns breaking loose or falling over, and of being shot or hit with splinters - imagine operating in this smoky environment as the deck shifts and heels with the ship’s maneuvering on the sea. There’s thirty guns at work here, worked by 150 men, and the only light streams in from the open gun ports and the hatch to the upper deck.
The danger (existentially of death, as well as physical pain) implicit in the experience is palpable- it is a powerful full-body realization to relate physically with these huge, beautiful, scary objects in the cramped space. My goal is to viscerally illustrate this scene of amazing dexterity between men and machine in such close quarters during action at sea. It is eerie observed as a voyeur, with hind-sight, in the ‘future.’ I acknowledge its past-tense delicately and with reverence- all rendered in ghostly white, with the stillness and silence of vacancy. The guns are porcelain- transformed; industrial and fierce, yet fragile.
Work on the project began in 2016 with support from Boston’s USS Constitution Museum, who provided me with schematics for the guns and ship layout, and the John Michael Kohler Art Center’s Arts/Industry Program who awarded me a residency in the Kohler pottery factory in Wisconsin. I painstakingly fabricated all the parts for a gun - wooden patterns for casting multiples in clay at Kohler. Producing it (cheaply) is an achievement in engineering and execution that I’m tremendously proud of. The pottery technician and designers advised me that my project may prove impossible, as it was one of the most ambitious ever proposed in the 49-year history of the Program. With no funding to hire assistants, it was a physical challenge doing all the work myself but also exhilarating, and it honed my determination to succeed. I produced sixteen huge, heavy, multi-part plaster molds with steel infrastructures and handles to manipulate them solo with a hoist. Using them, I successfully slip-cast in vitreous china (liquid industrial porcelain) twenty-seven components to make a full cannon... twice! I made two cannon! Some of the components are the largest ever attempted at the facility. They look fantastic, exactly as I had imagined: huge, shiny white cannons with a toilet-like visual vernacular - a perfect balance of industrial manufactured product and fragility; they embody beauty and death simultaneously. [A presentation on the project is available]
Having shipped this literal ton of product to my studio, I then designed and fabricated steel infrastructures to robustly assemble the ceramic cannons’ parts. Once it has a venue, I’ll design and build the architectural space - a fat slice of the vast gun deck’s interior - built in segments (to ease assembly and shipment).
The resulting artwork is a built environment: my version of a cross-section of the ship’s gundeck width-wise, all completely white. Viewers enter and exit the space through discreet ‘doors’ on either side. Two white ceramic Great Guns point out small open gunports on both (port and starboard) sides of the “ship,” and large mirrors fore and aft reflect the scene into each other infinitely in a recursive effect. The viewer is thus beheld in an infinite ghostly-white gun deck battery disappearing into both horizons, a curious and powerful experience. This is the most ambitious project to-date in my career; I expect it to be a legacy piece with lasting impact.
made possible by the Kohler Arts/Industry program, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and assistance from the USS Constitution This sculptural installation still seeks exhibition.
It’s construction:
These devices function either actually, or metaphorically. Even in the imagination, the collaboration between user and tool results in an experience/experiment; the duo act as a machine. Are they relics, whose time has passed, or is their use alive in the present as objects of wonder? The ‘present moment’ has always evinced a fascinating, modern world at the height of technology. It is an uncanny thing viewed with the benefit of hindsight.
copper and turned maple
This instrument measures out single doses of liquid. It expresses an offering, when held in the hands of the administrator, to an open mouth. Its dispensation results in an intimate exchange between the administrator and receiver of the dose, while suggesting some alchemical transformation in the exchange.
boxwood, brass, gold ink
This measuring and drafting device is calibrated in millimeters, and spans the distance of the artist’s armspan. It is jointed correspondingly so that a line may be measured out according to the segments of the arms. In this way, it relates the body to its environment in a tangible and quantifiable way. Phi, also called the Golden Rule, is a proportion of roughly 1:1.618 and is classically considered the most pleasing of proportions. It is found repeatedly in nature as well as the body and holds much notoriety from its use in Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man”.
This instrument measures out three simultaneous doses upon collaboration with a dosing administrator. The kneeler, which accommodates three supplicants, suggests a ceremonial ritual whose privilege is belied by the potentially poisonous lead lining of the dosing apparatus.
This small instrument operates with a scissor-like maneuver by the thumb and forefinger when placed in the brass rings. The mahogany shape cups the palm of the hand. The function of the tips of this device, one smooth and one with small spines, is oblique and multifarious.
These instruments suggest both a scraping and collecting function with their spoon-like ends, as well as a measuring function for calibrating small volumes. Their delicate style and material construction also suggest uncommon use for special occasions.
"By envisioning rupture, a violence unperformed yet garnering visibility under the aegis of desire, 'Tool' dares to interrogate the integral periphery of the body, thereby inferring its fragility and the necessity for its preservation.”
“Making visible the paradox that 'to puncture' is simultaneously 'to open up' and 'to close off', to free and to silence, 'Tool' incorporates an awareness of the body as both barrier and means to the present moment. Within its latent ability to pierce there lies the pain of rending consciousness and the promise of access to an interior register wherein listening inclines toward an infinite proportion, recognizing the truth of a finite measure…”
- M. M. Anderson, “Punctuation.” Berwick Research Institute air Volume 1, 2004.
This instrument functions as an analogue amplifier. It harnesses the physics of a particular shape and volume to funnel sound into a concentrated area. A previously popular accoutrement of the aged and wealthy, this device has fallen from fashion with culture’s desire to suppress the visibility of an imperfect physiognomy.
Endurance performance in White Sands National Monument. The “monitor” and her instrument case are in white, blending in to the environs. The instrument is unpacked and assembled on site in the dunes. It consists of two large stethoscopes, which press against the sand and connect to the monitor’s earphones via tubing. This device is housed in tall forearm crutches, so that when in use, the monitor pulls her body off the earth, and only her ears (via their extensions) are connected to the earth. The monitor’s endurance determines her ability to sonically monitor the dunes.
This instrument was used in a brief performance during the opening reception of Christy Georg: Instruments of Calibration and Ascertainment at the Roswell Museum in 2005. The artist, clad in the embroidered cloak, traveled with the phonograph from here through the Robert Goddard wing, and back in serenade/elegy for the innovative rocketeer. The selected song was “Fly Me to the Moon” by Bart Howard, performed by Frank Sinatra and the Count Basie Orchestra, the same version played during the landing sequence of the Apollo mission in 1969. This was the first music to play in space. Goddard was an early pioneer of rocketry, intent on reaching “extreme altitudes,” sending a rocket to the moon and possibly to mars. He died in 1945, when the probability of such missions was still viewed with skepticism.
This instrument was used in a performance during the opening reception of this exhibition in the Roswell Museum. The artist, clad in the embroidered cloak, traveled with the phonograph from here through the Robert Goddard wing, and back in serenade/elegy for the innovative rocketeer. The selected song was “Fly Me to the Moon” by Bart Howard, performed by Frank Sinatra and the Count Basie Orchestra, the same version played during the landing sequence of the Apollo mission in 1969. This was the first music to play in space. Goddard was an early pioneer of rocketry, intent on reaching “extreme altitudes,” sending a rocket to the moon and possibly to mars. He died in 1945, when the probability of such missions was still viewed with skepticism.
explication poster that I designed
Steel, plastic, electronics 2002
The apparatus Accompaniment was held as one would a cane, and with its wheel and amplified stylus, it served as both physical and auditory accompaniment for ambulation, enriching the experience with its synchronistic translation of path and distance into sound and duration. Three separate output devices, (two shown here) Accompaniment Accoutrement, serviced the Operator in particular and varied aural experiments.
Inspired by the transistor, a semiconductor for amplifying, controlling, and generating signals fundamental to most active electronic circuits, the Transistor Triumvirate consists of three discrete yet interdependent parts. Internal logic governs the flow of energy (here, kinetic motion and sound waves). A small amount of power applied between the Base and the Emitter resulted in an amplified output of power between the Collector and the Emitter, which, poetically here, completed the circuit enacted by the Operator. One experiment had the tubing from the Base attached to the headgear from the Collector. The Emitter had been employed for measured cadence, to drum upon the glass surface of the Collector.
blown glass, steel, and plastic 2002
Emitter
blown glass, fabricated steel, and plastic tubing
The eyeware props were used in performances.
fabricated steel. Used in a performance.
hemp, tarred nylon, wood, brass, steel, and pine tar 48” x 26” x 18”
This ridiculous, beautiful non-functional saddle is made entirely of decorative sailors knots and reeks of Age of Sail tallships’ pine tar, used to preservative on cordage. Conceptually, it redacts usefulness instead celebrating design, objecthood, and materiality. I explore parallels between the sailor and the cowboy with new work making cowboy accoutrements made from sailor’s materials, and vice-versa. While whalers and sealing men travelled north toward the arctic expanses of ice, cowboys coaxed their cattle drives through the Southwest to Kansas. Shared tools of the trade include rope work, carpentry for mending and jury-rigging, working through rough weather while traveling long distances thorough open expanses, and physical strength and fortitude.
graphite and carbon on vellum 17” x 11”
Steel, wood, paper, machine parts, sound. 20”x 50” x42”
The vehicle of the machine acts as an extension of the individual, creating a dialog between expectation, potential, and action. Wait/Hate (for Nauman) pounds out a repetitive gesture of wating, drumming of fingers, with each engagement of the hand-operated crank, questioning the expectation by both viewer and sculpture as well as the quality of the reproduction of the experience. Aside from the blurry text “HATE” produced, a literal drawing in space and time is made by the paper, which builds up on the floor, documenting the action.
There are two separate motions: one spins a piece of chalk on an arm, drawing a circle. The other rides on it, rubbing an eraser back and forth continuously, opposite the chalk. Periodically, the chalk drive takes a rest, yet the futile eraser still rubs and squeaks, not erasing but smearing and blurring the line.
An orchestrated argument between two typewriters beats out a cha-cha rhythm. The record of their exchange are typed yeses and nos of fickle passion, which billow about them.
It is a device going through the motions, using a measured process, to attain harmony (or curb dischord). A scientific instrument slowly drips water into a glass, which periodically spins to be "played" by a cork-tipped player arm. Concurrently, a small hammer strikes a tuning fork, indicating the aural goal. Again and again, as the glass fills with water, it alters its pitch, closer to that of the tuning fork. Its struggle is in the attempt to attain perfect pitch, though once attained, is fleeting.
2006
Birdseye maple, brass, steel, tuning fork, rubber, electronics.
Piqued by amber beckoning, visual desire/curiosity is punctuated aurally in the stereo octave key of C. The desire and the reward thus make a closed system, celebrating its fleeting moment.
There are two separate motions: one spins a piece of chalk on an arm, drawing a circle. The other rides on it, rubbing an eraser back and forth continuously, opposite the chalk. Periodically, the chalk drive takes a rest, yet the futile eraser still rubs and squeaks, not erasing but smearing and blurring the line.
steel, machine parts, wood, velvet, vintage roller skates, vinyl record “The Best of the Last 50 Years,” 52" x 48" x 44"
This direct-drive phonograph machine was built for a performance at de Fabriek, Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The artist, wearing vintage roller-skates, pushed/skated at the appropriate (breakneck) speed to play the vinyl record, "The Best of the Last 50 Years”. It now lives as a relic on a very slowly rotating red velvet platform.
2022 photograph 35” x 20”
silver, copper, brass, steel, cork, and leather
Relating to Human Design, this apparatus is designed to engage the body’s Sacral energy center- perhaps enhancing or augmenting its authority in specific environments. Its central T-lock mechanism accommodates two choices: the Attenuator cork or the Amplifier/Receiver horn. Energetically, symbolically, or otherwise, this device delivers options, subtlety, receptivity and communion- an adjustment/additive for sacral yes-no gut-response drive. Precious silver, an excellent conductor, is the point of contact of this antennae’s heightened reception or muffled rejection. The belt is very tight; the skin absorbs the text’s impression, a stamp that lingers after the experience.
metallic photograph 18” x 29” 2008
Site of the world's largest tidal shifts- the Minas Basin, Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia. Atop my sculptural prop of a ship's ladder, imbedded in the bottom of the ocean, I look out for the sea's imminent return.
White Sands National Monument, 2005
Endurance performance in White Sands National Monument. The “monitor” and her instrument case are in white, blending in to the environs. The instrument is unpacked and assembled on site in the dunes. It consists of two large stethoscopes which press against the sand and connect to the monitor’s earphones via tubing. This device is housed in tall forearm crutches, so that when in use the monitor pulls her body off the earth, and only her ears (via their extensions) are connected to the earth. The monitor’s endurance determines her ability to sonically monitor the dunes.
in the collection of I-Park Artist Residency
graphite and carbon on vellum, 42” x 42”
I made this large drawing while Artist-in-Residence at Boston Center for the Arts. I chose to create a map/chart of the harbor based on interesting historical locations and contemporary places of note. I conducted workshops with locals, asking for memories and stories about locations to fuel it.
graphite and carbon on vellum, 17" x 11"
