Category: EXPERIMENTATION

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.

I love marble wallpaper! I think it’s so absurd. A flat, papery thing to make other things look heavy. I crumpled and tore this one up. I stacked them and that did not work. So far, they seem pretty good when they’re lying about.

I began the semester very excited about getting into things. And so, I ended up buying a lot of materials. My ideas would change, and I would buy more materials. Until by the beginning of October I had a lot of materials in my studio, most of which I wasn’t using. I had been feeling quite guilty about this stockpiling. It felt morally wrong to be consuming so much, and also not actually engaging with very much of it. And so, I started doing just that. And in the meantime, I made myself a temporary “garbage” as a reminder to slow down and spend time with what’s around me.

I am still in the process of playing with this, but I’m interested in waving handkerchiefs. There’s a play with the movement of the fabric, and the signal of a movement (of farewell, or of a beginning) that I really like.