Pull | 2008 | ceramic insulators | 15 x 12 x 4 in.

The parts for this piece were originally found on a loading dock in early 2007. I’ve always liked these forms for the competing quality the ribbing and ceramic suggest.

I had gone through a handful of ideas on how to use them but eventually set them aside for lack of clarity. What was really happening was that I was over-thinking the matter, trying too hard to justify my reasons for liking the object.

After staring at it for a while I began to strip off all the attached pieces that were hooked onto each insulator; little by little aranging them in ways that evoked a reaction in me that was greater than the sum of the parts. At one point I walked out to the street to look up at a telephone pole to get an better image of them in their normal state, which really didn’t help much. At another point I fell asleep in my chair. Once I woke up I was able to think a little clearer. I then decided to begin with just the two insulators and add pieces as needed. Nothing more was needed once I came to this arangement.

Teapot with Cushion | 2006 | teapot, urethane foam and silicone

Although these are technically teapots, I am excited about their sculptural possibilities. My original inspiration came from the Philip Guston retrospective at the Fort Worth Modern in 2003. I came across one of his later works on paper “Untitled (Kettle)” from 1980. What really struck me about this simple image of a kettle was how Guston gave himself the permission to alter the idea of a kettle to suit his tastes.

While this is not a foreign concept to me, my interest lies in that there is nothing else in this drawing to place it in the context of reality, no cup, no table, no stovetop. All one has to go on is this kettle, and yet, right away I took for granted that this was a kettle. It could be his idea of a house for all I know. The steaming spout could easily be a chimney, and what looks to be a handle resting on the shoulder of the form could be the gutter of the roof. What this little epiphany did for me was help me see that I could take these two teapots that I purchased at a thriftstore and alter their forms and function considerably and still consider them teapots, or not. The tension, created between what I know to be a teapot and what I am actually looking at, really excites me. The other side of this is in altering of a form with what could be considered it’s surface rather than its structure. This is still new to me.

Orange to Red | 2006 | Video | Endless Loop

Click to watch.

Orange to Red is a repeating animation of a floating blob that throbs back and forth. Somewhat of a self portrait as I am prone to frequent headaches. The complementing colors are to intensify this feeling. The clean, clinical blue provides a striped down environment to the burning orange and red form.

Untitled | 2006 | ceramic, wood, latex and acrylic paint, nail polish, acoustic texture and joint compound

This work is a continuation of something I started a year ago. The main difference is that instead of being connected to the wall with lots of joint compound, this piece hangs on the wall.

’doth protest too much’ | 2005 | 40×30 inches | wine on paper

These drawings are the result of trying to escape the drawback of gravity that was inherent in the sculptural work I had been making. I also wanted to use as drawing materials, mediums that could be seen as addictive or overindulgent. Trying to replicate the characteristics I was looking for in acrylics and other normal drawing/painting materials wasn’t working. I finally had the idea to just use the materials themselves. Among the edible things I tried, wine and coffee worked the best.

The wine creates a nice effect as the sugar recrystallizes providing a sparkling effect. The darker areas are where the wine pooled. With the coffee, I created a richer shading effect by brewing finely ground coffee in a French press. The grounds congregated in the areas where the paper buckled and I used spray-fix to keep them put.

Three of these were exhibited at the MAC in Dallas, Texas in an exhibition entitled “Conspicuous Production“.

Under Pants | 2005 | 25″x25″ | urethane foam, joint compound, latex and acrylic paints and nail polish

This installation represented the first non-ceramic work I’d ever exhibited. When I started the year-long residency program through the University of Texas at Dallas I was just out of graduate school and making ceramic sculpture. For the first six months of the residency I experimented with lots of different materials outside of clay with little success. With this series I was trying to get past the limitations of my small pedestal work and make something that had an impact on what ever space it was in. I thought of these pieces as a response to the clean, clinical and benign space that normally represents a gallery, hemorrhoidal growths that interrupt an otherwise unblemished wall. I positioned them at heights that would create relationships with one’s lower body as these are areas that usually show the most signs of overindulgence.

Captain Toe | 2005 | 17″x13″x8.5″ | ceramic and enamel

This work is an extension of my work in graduate school. Once I started to put these guys on the floor their concept really started to come to life . They became like little pets to me. Extensions of oneself that represent all of the little things that can take over one’s life, plopped on the floor and domesticated. And for the most part, that’s how I named them. Little nicknames that just seemed to fit. Like when you get a new pet and you take a while to get a sense of their personality and then use that as inspiration for a name. Sometimes its obvious like Blue, and other times , not so obvious like Captain Toe.

After my first semester in grad school I wanted to start exploring ideas that dealt with issues I felt more strongly about as opposed to the concept of functional vessels that I had been working with during my time as an undergraduate. During a trip to New York I was able to see the work of Carol Dunham, as well as the rich graffiti that covered certain parts of the city. For me, these images, along with the ideas that were being conveyed, clicked with what I had been thinking about and drawing in my sketchbook. Once I was back I started working on forms that related to intestine-like organs with surfaces that displayed ideas of decadence and sensationalism. I wanted to anthropomorphize the internal forms that mitigated one’s external desires.