The Recovery of Discovery
One of the more powerful early childhood images is that of Benjamin Franklin flying his kite in an electric storm. It is a wonderful and dangerous fusion of play and scientific inquiry. For the child (“Kinderkiteâ€), this image resists earthbound reality and encourages exploration and imagination as the “key†to discovery.
When we moved near the Bowling Green airport my wife arranged for a flight in a small private plane. The vantage point revealed the bubbled complexity of the geology below but most extraordinary was the experience of flight itself. As the pilot handed over the controls, the natural physics of flight, the exhilaration of realizing that space and movement were gracefully omni directional, challenged previous perceptions entirely.
This grouping celebrates elevation, the ability to dream and imagine alternate states of being. They are models of idealism more focused on fanciful flight and release than laborious maintenance.
Clay Wings
(Screen ink scraped across coins, buttons, bones, Kentucky Red Clay, and PVA on paper, 30″ x 72″)
Newness implies transformation. Community construction requires the soft skin of lush green grass to be stripped away revealing blood red clay, visceral and vibrant. It is the perfect media to address life flow and transformation.
Skins and Shirts
(Screen ink scraped across coins, buttons, bones, Kentucky Red Clay, and PVA on paper, 30″ x 72″)
Spectacle of transformation, inversions, inside outside, spattered conversion/extension, seeding, la vestida/la camisa, buttons and bones, gristle and tissue.