Month: November 2020

I’m experimenting with melting away the “skin” texture of some other PVC leather that I have in my studio.

I molded the surface of my Ikea table before scraping it away and cast it in resin. When it sits on top of the table, you can see the scraping through the “wood” veneer.

I’m interested in the element of time spent together. The table which has been fully scraped reflects a relationship between myself and the object. Sometimes I would approach it with excitement, sometimes with fatigue. Sometimes I would be working quickly, sometimes slow. And how would the table change. Perhaps some days there was more moisture in the air, some days less. As more of its underbelly was revealed, perhaps its chemical constitution began to change, however minutely. And the markings on the table are what remains of this exchange, a union of sorts.

I was initially attracted to the faux leather because of the juxtaposition of skin and PVC. I’m interested in the idea of micro plastics leaching into bodies. To make body surfaces out of plastic seemed to be in some ways an extreme way of exemplifying that. I had the initial idea to cover something in the fabric, perhaps a body part. I was thinking a lot of Janine Antoni’s Saddle. I decided instead to carve into it. I began carving, but it wasn’t turning out as I’d hoped. It was then that I realized that I needed to “skin” it. In peeling off the PVC and trying to return the fabric to what it really is (cotton) I couldn’t help but destroy it, physicalizing the interconnectedness of synthetics within our structures and bodies. This to me feels like the first moment of contact between myself and the material. As I work with it, further questions and concerns will undoubtedly emerge.

I really love the wood grain of this PVC wood. It feels very silly to me, and yet there is something strangely comforting about being allowed to reference it as wood through its surface. I’ve been doing a lot of research on plastics and thinking about how plastics can’t biodegrade but instead can only photodegrade. There is a Donna Haraway quote about the cyborg not dreaming of returning to dust and this made me think of the micro plastics that will continuously float about, getting smaller and smaller but never changing molecular form. I wanted to physicalize the breakdown of this PVC in relation to its wood surface. The only way for it to become dust is for me to intervene and make it so. This also feels like the first step in a longer engagement with the materials.

I bought this foam at the beginning of the semester, thinking that I would carve it, and it’s been sitting in my studio ever since in its plastic bag. There are certain actions that the foam seems to be calling for. Squishing, marking, tearing. I decided to leave the foam in its bag and to tie it with fishing line. But in tying, the fishing line began to dig in and go through. I wanted to join the cut in the middle, but it was impossible with the same string of fishing line, so I continued down. It’s hanging on by an inch or so.

I had a moment at the beginning of the semester when I became obsessed with Ikea furniture. I loved that it feigned at design (they include the name of the designer on the box) but has also become so ubiquitous most homes have something from it. There’s also a bit of a cavalier-ness that I’ve noticed in how we treat Ikea furniture. It’s easy to throw out/give away/abandon. I started accumulating cheap Ikea furniture from Craigslist, including this table. I made a mold of the table, and had the idea of casting it in something. Maybe resin? It was not very thought out. And then, I decided to scrape it. I still have my mold, and so can replace the table’s veneer, but for now I wanted to dig beneath its surface.