Replica of an 18th Century
Folk Chair in Stone
The riddle; What weighs more 100lb of feathers or 100lb of stones? gives us the answer in plain sight but in the familiar logic of the materials, feathers and stone, we are tricked. This chair is a replica of an 18th century Swedish folk chair I found listed on the 1st dibs auction site.
I constructed the chair in pine, mimicking the joinery from the original, and laminated the surface with vinyl peel and stick flooring tiles and nailed a grid across all surfaces.
The chair is filled with stones, which makes the chair almost immovable from the weight.
Pine, Vinyl Peel and Stick Flooring, Nails, Stone
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Bow Back Windsor Chair
In a windsor chair every component is mutually dependent on the other, held together by tension.The spindles are carved and turned by hand with a spoke shave and lathe, the feet are modeled, printed, and cast by machine. The rubber seat and backrest are cast in a hand carved oak mold, replicating the surface texture of the oak.
The spirit of Ouroboros exists in urethane and pervades every aspect of contemporary life. It exists in our shoes, in our toothbrushes, in our rocket ships, and in our food. If we eat it will we be immortal too?
Made with Oak, and Urethane Rubber Cast in an Oak Mold
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Urethane is the New Mercury
A mirror facing a mirror reflects itself into infinity until the light is entirely absorbed and becomes a void.I modeled my practice after Gnostic Alchemy, the transmutation of rubber to oak modeled after the alchemist’s transmutation of mercury to gold. Fusing past and future together through material and that materials mirror image and style and that style’s mirror image.
What the alchemists believed to be spiritual oneness is symbolized by the object and its mirror image.
Oak, Urethane Rubber Cast in an Oak Mold
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Taxidermy Tree
3 levels of abstraction of a birch tree
First birch bark was foraged from fallen trees in a massachusetts state park. Then the bark was cut into squares and laminated onto plywood using a vacuum bag. Then the plywood was cut and joined with miters. The legs are from birch heartwood lumber and milled and joined using mortise and tenon and screwed to the plywood seat.
“ One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth. ” - Old alchemical verse
Birch bark, Birch plywood, Birch Heartwood
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I Want to Live in a Spaceship That’s Furnished Like a Log Cabin
The false dichotomy of past and future are evoked through the reference to folk and industrial vernaculars. These styles have been removed from the context which created them and now act as signifiers, like letters in an alphabet.
“Heaven above/ heaven below / stars above / stars below. / All that is above / also is below/ grasp this / and rejoice” - Old alchemical verse
Hog/Horsehair, Cotton Batting, Burlap, Jute Webbing, Tacks, Springs, Ash, Linen, Aluminum