Graduate Thesis
I graduated from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, in 1997 with a MFA in Sculpture & Installation. The following images are from my thesis exhibition in particular with corollary statement below.
PLANES
It’s an early Tuesday morning, or maybe it’s Wednesday. I sit down at a table in my studio. I clear the table of all its ordinary chaos and from my backpack I pull out a ream of white typing paper. I place it to the right of center on the table. I rub my hands and crack my knuckles. I arch my back for a moment, and then settle into my chair. I take a single sheet of typing paper and place it in the center of the table. I begin to fold the paper in such a way that by the seventh crease, I have constructed a paper airplane.
I stop to think about how many I want to make, then about how many I really need to make for the purposes of the exhibition I have in mind. I take into consideration the issues of space and volume and other such sculptural concerns, but I soon return to the simple act of folding. I drift in and out of thought. These thoughts however, are limited to the specifics of the work I am doing and its applications, implications, formal qualities, and so on. I return to the folding. I remind myself that people use paper like this every day in a variety of ways as a medium on which to communicate with each other. This paper, too, will communicate something. I return to the folding. I can not discern as to whether I am being active or passive. My guess is that I am both as I return to the folding.
I find myself making calculations. I figure out that two planes can be made every minute or so. One hundred and twenty planes an hour if I keep up the pace or more if I get into a good rhythm. I realize that because I decided to make three thousand planes in all, that in twenty-five hours or so, I will have made twenty one thousand folds. I wonder to myself if efficiency really has anything to do with the work or if I am somehow compelled to move as fast as I can. Yes, I must move fast. I have to capture the fleeting instant and freeze it. I try to suspend the activity and I become suspended myself. When I am finished with folding one plane, I place it in a stack of others and immediately reach for another sheet of paper, though I am never fast enough.
My fingertips have become smooth but hard and my hands feel strong and patient. I think several hours have passed now and I decide to stop. I do not think about when I will return to this work. It will always be there. I leave the studio and circle around in half thought for the rest of the day. I think about why our experience of time contracts and expands in relation to all the events that comprise this earthly life and come to the conclusion that our lives are indeed quite like paper airplanes. Directed and propelled by what or whom, I wonder.
CARDS
I sit in a chair and open up a brand new deck of playing cards. Approximately twenty feet away is an upside down felt hat spinning around on a motorized turntable. I take out a single card and snap my wrist in such a way that I propel that card towards the hat with the intention of placing it in the interior of the hat. The card flutters past its target. I pull out another card and take a deep breath as I focus on the hat, which completes and begins another cycle. I notice the quality of light in the room. The contrast is sharp but not bothersome. I flick the card with non-aggressive force and watch it reveal itself. This card falls short. The next sweeps off to the left. I find yet another card in my right hand between the thumb, middle, and index finger. It is gone and replaced with still another card. I am moving at a quicker, though relaxed pace, than when I first began. I have thrown seven hundred cards. I am measuring time.
I begin to notice the dispersion of cards surrounding the turntable. I realize there is a metamorphosis unfolding before me. A three dimensional drawing is taking place though I try not to think of composition. I try and let it draw itself. It is difficult not to make judgements and comparisons. Sometimes, I can’t help myself. I try to throw some red just above and to the right of the hat. The card lands where it lands despite my so-called aesthetic sensibility. I become frustrated and start to throw the cards at a much quicker pace in an attempt to shake off my self-conscious behavior. It seems to help and I gradate into a slower rate of movement. I acquiesce. I slowly come to terms with the moment as I admire the flight of each card. I have forgotten that I am throwing cards. Then, suddenly, I am startled as a card hits the brim of the hat, and rolls in. I am for a moment taken by the sensation of it all. I am distracted. I immediately begin to aim at the interior of the old hat once again. A few cards find their way into the felt target after some amount of time but the thrill is gone. The so-called target is merely an illusion, which I no longer require. I throw now for the sake of throwing. I have thrown nineteen hundred cards. I am passing through time.
What I feel is so immaterial and so objective that the event unfolding seems to occur outside the body. I am absolutely lost in action. I have surrendered. I swam upstream until my mind and body became too weak and tired. This was my intention. Now I am underwater at last. I have become passive through engaging in a specific activity. I am in a state of non-knowledge achieved through a process that required specific knowledge. I consistently see the cards suspended in flight now. I too am in a condition of suspended animation. I have reached a certain state of sublimity through tension. The sound of the motor that turns the hat no longer interferes with the silence; it increases it. I have thrown two thousand eight hundred and eight cards. I am lost in time, which itself is lost in infinity.
I have no more cards to throw. I sit in undiminished solitude. I have evaporated. I am gone. I am in the air. I am falling. Everything is clean and clear. I am the hat and the motor and the playing card. I am the wall and the floor. I am everything and nothing. I am no better or worse than the chair I am sitting in. There is no logic here.
PENNIES
A silver pail is suspended three and one half feet from the floor. It slowly drops to one half foot and then ascends back up to three and one half feet by means of a motorized pulley system I have constructed. There is only one light source on in the room and it is directly above the pail. I sit and watch the shadow, which is cast on the floor by this light. I am watching this shadow slowly dilate and attenuate as the cycle repeats itself in thirty-second intervals.
My right hand is numb but warm. I am nearly finished. I am essentially placid, though completely alert at this point. I am aware of everything. It is as though I have come to understand the entire history of this room through my senses alone. The floor is hard and cold, yet I am comfortable.
I rest the last penny on the tip of my thumbnail and index finger. I close my eyes and wait. I am doing my best to listen with my whole body. My hand becomes tensed. A small burst of energy releases the penny and for a split second, nothing exists. The penny hits the floor and I hear it spiraling around looking for a place to stop. I keep my eyes closed. I am trying to listen with my whole body, yet I am not sure what I am listening to or for.
A few minutes go by and I open my eyes. It is as though I am seeing the room for the first time. I am experiencing this space unconditionally. Each sense is distinct; everything has such incredible clarity. The light is clean as it plays off the silver and copper. The motor is quiet and reliably steady. There is a consistency to the random pattern of the pennies about the floor. There is fullness, not emptiness, in the spaces where there is an absence of light. I have attained a particular state of being in the same way that water finds its own level.
Though I have finished, I feel as though I am still pitching pennies. It is as though I am finally on dry land after having been in a small boat for a few days. I don’t want to leave this space so I stay for a couple of hours more. I sit and think of nowhere and nothing but right there and everything. I am slowly pulled out of this experience the same way that water is pulled out of pavement after a summer shower. The rest of the next few days, I notice things. I pay attention. I walk easily, understanding the unimportance of destinations and appreciating the rarity of the moments, which I have captured.
