DEVICES OF DUBIOUS UTILITY

The inspiration for the series of “Devices” has been a chorus of inner muses — Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll, & George Orwell — urging me to ‘think six dozen Alternative Facts each day before breakfast’ — as an essential tonic before the daily flood of confabulations from the dysfunctional leaders of our bodies politic. This is an ongoing series of assemblages constructed of ordinary yet odd items, bamboo, wood, wire, hemp, paint & glue.

A subset of “Devices” is the series of “Brushes with Meaning”. Each is constructed of bamboo and some unconventional fiber to create a brush that makes it nearly, if not actually, impossible to use as a true brush. Several of these pieces have been exhibited variously at ARC Gallery, San Francisco, in the littleSCULPTURE exhibition of the International Sculpture Conference in Philadelphia, PA, and elsewhere. 

 

 

2018-2019 WALL DEVICES

The following are a few of sixteen “Wall Devices” exhibited in the invitational exhibition FourSquared All-Stars at San Francisco’s ARC Gallery (24 August through 28 September 2019). These ‘Devices’ reflect on the effects of walls, both physical and metaphorical, on populations, countries, families and friends. Appearing at first black and white, subtle colors are visible from one side or the other, and the found objects demonstrate futile attempts to bridge the walls physically or via some form of communication.

 

2017-2018

The “Autonomous Device for Managing Road Rage”, below, was exhibited along with three “Brushes with Meaning” in the FourSquared Alumni 2018 invitational exhibition at Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Curator Michael Yochum.

 

2016-2017

Devices of Dubious Utility from the Museum of Post-Truth Artifacts

This was the first set of “Devices”.  Each of these twenty pieces was mounted on a base that appears aged with multiple layers of paint. The front bears a ‘distressed’ label, suggesting a fusty museum relic from a parallel universe — or our own future. On back is a similar artist-signed certificate with the title, ID number, presumed ‘instructions’ for use of the artifact, & the impressed ‘MOPTA’ logo of the fictitious ‘Museum of Post-Truth Artifacts’.

The pieces reflect the divisive politically driven rhetoric, memes & strategies that distract attention from tenuously-sustained, crucially endangered matters of nourishing food, clean air, water, health, peace, & respectful social discourse. Below are the initial twenty “Devices”:

 

Sixteen of these pieces were exhibited in the FourSquared 2017 invitational exhibition at Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA. Curator Michael Yochum.

“Device #1 for Achieving Indirect Entry into Enclosed Spaces” was exhibited in Room for Thought at SPACE 151, San Francisco, CA, March-April 2018. Juror Jack Fischer. An image of the piece appeared in the V37, No.6 issue of Sculpture magazine.

“Device for Managing Words Already Spoken” appeared 2018 in Forms & Sequences at Siskiyou Arts Museum, Dunsmuir, CA. Juror Phil Linhares.

“Device for Summoning Rain”, “Device for Tracing an Idea Back to It’s Source”, and “Device for Transitioning from Old to New Technologies” will be in Sculpture Now at Peninsula Museum of Art, Burlingame, CA, 2018-2019. Juror Brigitte Micmacker.

 

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