‘Flow Center’
The title Flow Center is borrowed from the (Target) supply chain logistic facility near the Linden co-generation plant along the Chemical Coast, a moniker for the abundance of chemical plants along theArthur Kill. Cold human order is imposed on the natural (chaotic) petrified wood artifact where extraction of resources has depleted the source. A piping system saddles the stone, gripping it like a claw- nature yoked by technology.
The casting process carried out in the making of the pipes reflects the replacement of wood by minerals (quartz) deposited over millennia
Petrified wood was presumably balast brought from England between the 17th and 19th centuries and deposited in the Jersey City area
‘Chemical Coast’
Slate stele with sigil-like inscriptions depicting satellite maps of the Kinder Morgan petroleum tank farm in Carteret, NJ on one side and the International -Matex Tank Terminal at Constable Hook, Bayonne, NJ on the other. The latter surrounds a small burial ground dating to 1854. The stele has been used in various cultures across the globe to connect to the afterlife, marking and honoring the deceased. Formally it has changed little obviated by the gravestones and grave markers of today. This piece was inspired by an ancient Chinese stele supported by a bisected turtle base.
Slate is a denser version of shale, a source of fossil fuels- the compressed remains of organic matter formed through heat and pressure during the Mesozoic period.
Castings of bottle caps from petroleum based products like engine oil and fuel additives mimic cylindrical tanks arranged on the maps while the split base is cast from an antifreeze f-type container in a play on scale.
‘Deep Unreal’
Two plastic bottles are melted, one covering the other, and resin is syringe injected into the space between them deepening the color and giving the illusion of glass
Gold is applied to quartz crystals via vapor deposition in a vacuum chamber, organic look, futuristic but ancient, Anthropocene, inspired by the late 19th century Blaschka brothers glass models of marine invertebrates and Giacomo Merculiano paintings of same
Speaks to the alien world of the deep sea
‘Saddle Rock Spectre’
Named after the famous Saddle Rock oysters from an eponymous island near Norwalk, CT where large oysters were discovered by colonists in 1827 and wiped out by 1832
With efforts like the Billion Oyster Project the City waters can be rehabilitated from pollution and barriers created to protect the shores from storm surge and rising sea levels
‘Richly Laid’
Name derived from the Jan Davidszoon de Heem still life painting A Richly Laid Table with Parrots, 1655 while broader inspiration for this piece comes from other still lives with oysters of the time (Pieter Claesz), emulates their palette and composition (a diagonal device was often employed like a long stemmed smoking pipe or a the neck of a lute), studded brick references the Roemer drinking glasses present in many Dutch still life paintings of the 17th C, colors are muted primaries, reflect the early Dutch Prince William of Orange flag and the New York State flag
The oyster has deep ties to the NYC area, Lenape and others harvested oysters and created middens, the Dutch commodified them and over harvested for profit, local industry collapses ca 1927 due to sewage and pollution
‘Poseidon’s Peril’
A dismembered and hollowed-out Poseidon perches atop this cascade of found miniature vessels transformed into ancient amphorae - broken, empty and dry.
‘The Weight of Lead’
An obelisk made of found lead type blocks, square and true at the base, destabilized at the top.
‘Dido’s Colonial Quadrille’
66 ceramic 'collages' linked to form a variation of a Gunter's chain, a 17th Century land surveying tool consisting of 33 lengths of elongated steel links used for physically measuring land and therefore widely used the define boundaries and stake out territories of North America and elsewhere. The Oxhide Myth describes how the Phoenician Queen Dido acquired a great tract of land in Tunisia by deceiving the Berbers. In this real estate deal, she requested and was granted a tiny piece of land- the amount encompassed by the hide of an ox. But to the Berbers’ dismay the hide was cut into thin strips and joined together forming a cord used to circumscribe a vast hillside. Maker’s marks dominate the outward facing side displaying crowns and coats of arms of European manufacturers, mostly from England, while the inward facing side is insular and white. Other pieces show period Europeans at leisure, many are fragments of the Colonial Couple‘s Quadrille Dance pattern of antique porcelain ware.
‘Grotesque’
ROMA MCDLXXX (CE 1480)
A wandering man fell through a hole on Capitoline Hill above Rome. Lighting a torch he illuminated a labyrinth of painted walls revealing artistic styles lost to time. Twisting vines and ever sprouting leaves painted symmetrically, climbed the walls in reds, pinks and greens entwining fantastic beasts and effortlessly supporting architectural scenes of far away places. He had stumbled upon the remains of Nero’s Domus Aurae - a sprawling palace burned to the ground in LXIV (CE 64) and long since covered over with more than a millennium of rock and debris. The revelation attracted Raphael and other artists who then adopted and interpreted these themes into the Renaissance canon. These motifs retained a hold on the artistic and architectural imagination well into the 20th century. Hybrid creatures were a favorite, leading to the term grotesque (ie: grotto). Strange faces grimacing above doorways and spiraling acanthus leaves on building facades are prevalent here in NYC and other places emulating the grottesci of Rome.
‘Corona Aurae Americanus’
Found pewter vessels and Americana dating from the 1950s melted down and recast as disposable utensil handles. Made during the 2020 election cycle, it’s previous title was ‘Winning Yet?’- a cheap, gaudy crown fit for an modern day American Cesar.
‘Stuyvesant’s Last Stand’
Petrus Stuyvesant saved the failing commercial endeavor of New Amsterdam with military-style discipline and religious intolerance but ultimately surrendered to British forces in 1664. It is constructed of a chair leg, shoe leather, rubber mat and silver-plated fork tines found along the shores of New York City. The chair leg was found in the mud in Tottenville, Staten Island, chained below the waterline to a piling and retrieved several years later. The pattern of fork tine nails represents the ‘XXX’ brand of the City of Amsterdam and subsequently New York City.
‘Sinister Bundle’
This was the original term Charles Thompson used when designing the American emblem in 1782 to describe the cluster of arrows clutched in the eagle’s left, or sinister talon. Here the bundle is inverted implying America is at peace and the double bow is inter-bound with its ends aloft suggesting unity amongst its populace is possible. Constructed during the 2020 election cycle.
‘Leeuwenhoek's Minutiae’
This piece was built with some of the smallest artifacts recovered from New York City area swamps and beaches. The central glass sphere contains slag reduced to sand in the industrial waters of the Arthur Kill. As the title infers, ‘Leeuwenhoek’s Minutiae’ is a visual imagining in the form of a microscope of the Dutch Optical scientist’s days as he tinkered in his drape shop/laboratory. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered living microbes through his finely crafted lenses in the 1670s, naming them ‘diertgens’, or tiny animals.
‘Tiny Animals’
imagining his daily details
once toiling in a drape shop-turned-lab
Delft, 1650
inspecting the finest threads
soon peering through a perfected lens
glass melted, ground?
keeping methods close to vest
now spying tiny animals unseen
‘til then, ‘diertgens’
‘Right of Discovery’
In 1493, the Vatican divided the globe (or what they knew of it), making the New World available for Christian conquest. Pope Alexander VI’s ‘Inter Caetera’ states: “And we make, appoint, and depute you and your said heirs and successors lords of them with full and free power, authority, and jurisdiction of every kind…” These glass binoculars (made of found antique bottles and other glass fragments) stare out at the horizon seeking the next ‘undiscovered’ land.
‘Imperfect Union’
Made of unglazed porcelain shards, fingerprint laden clay kiln wasters, porcelain doll parts, clay pipe fragments, European ballast flint, reclaimed/recast pewter, steel, aluminum and epoxy. The Ceremonial Mace of the House of Representatives is an American symbol of power and unity designed in the Roman aesthetic. The original commissioned by Congress in 1789 was destroyed when the British burned the House during the War of 1812. The New York Times on March 18, 1982 stated: “The present mace, in use since 1842, was made by William Adams of New York. It is 46 inches tall and consists of 13 thin ebony rods, representing the 13 original states, bound together with bands of silver and topped with a silver globe bearing an eagle. ”The main column of this scaled-up, fractured version is constructed of fingerprint laden clay kiln furniture and other elements attached to a chain link fence post. The globe, straps and collars are made from melted down/recast pewter objects sourced from NYC waterways and local thrift shops. As the title suggests, Americans are still struggling to achieve that ‘more perfect Union’ envisioned by the Founding Fathers.
‘Trace’
A Jersey City Holocene fossil- spanning the epoch from the Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) to the Anthropocene (1950 to present). Made of hydrocal, found pottery (ca 1850), spisula solidissima and argopecten irradians shells, pulverized incandescent light bulbs, carbon
‘Teller's Memory’
This piece is an imagined slab of fossil rich stone or shattered mosaic excised from our planet in the distant future. Shells and unglazed 19th century ceramic shards were gathered from deposits along the forgotten shores of Brooklyn. Sliced with a diamond blade and laid out in a mold in fernlike composition, they were cast in midnight blue pigmented plaster laced with pulverized incandescent lightbulbs.
‘Mortality Plate’
A fossil-like stele akin to a modern MRI scan blending natural and man made materials found along the shores of Dead Horse Bay, Brooklyn. This ‘mortality plate’ or ‘death assemblage’ (fossil preparation terminology) encase fragments of glass and bivalve shells
‘Denied Environment’ series
A denied environment is a military term for an extremely hostile battle zone where the enemy’s defenses seem impenetrable. In each of pieces the tell tale signs of the casting process were left in place, evident in their stem-like bases (now a positive of the hole into which the molten pewter was poured into the mold) and uncut sprue (now a positive of the vents allowing the air to escape). This reflects the process of turning ores into valuable commodities.
‘Battle of Tucapel’
As a child, Lauturo was abducted by Pedro de Valdivia, the Spanish Governor of Chile. Serving as the conquistador’s personal servant he learned military tactics and horsemanship. Finally escaping years later, Lauturo returned to his Mapuche people. As toqui, or wartime chief he used this acquired knowledge to decimate the conquistadors at the Battle of Tucapel in 1553 where the captured Valdivia met a grisly end. In one account, he was given the riches he sought in the form of molten gold- poured down his throat.
‘Mars Supine’
The death of War itself. Among the miniature, disabled canon, bullets of varying calibers and eras and broken pipe fragments lies the war god Mars. His hollowed out torso is infested with empty and perforated periwinkle shells collected along the Carteret, N.J. shores of the Arthur Kill.
‘Tableaux Mordant’
Inspired by Edgar Samuel Paxson’s 1899 painting of Custer’s Last Stand- a tightly packed tableaux of violence. Here, lead soldiers of various conflicts throughout history, bullets and bullet fragments and animal teeth are embedded in asphalt- a modern era matrix.
‘Viral Footprint’
Syringe parts (hypodermic needles, barrels and plungers) were found on the shores of Dead Horse Bay, Brooklyn (presumably from the 1940s/1950s) are assembled in the likeness of a toxic raincloud or stinging man-o-war. On the top is the sole of a boys shoe depicting a Minuteman running with his bayonet-fitted musket, as sharp as the needles beneath. As if extending its own tentacles, it’s encircled by the scraps, the die cut negative parts of synthetic shoe leather.
‘Anhooke’
The Quaker fugitive and Bronx homesteader Anne Hutchinson was killed by Wampage (Siwanoy) in August of 1643 during Kieft’s (or Wappinger) War in retribution for Native murders. He didn’t consider her responsible for these acts, but a price had to be paid. In a form of respect, he took her name as they knew it: Anhooke (after Anne’s Hook, the spit of land her farm occupied). Face to face they share a bifurcated clay tobacco pipe becoming one through the mutual and cultural interest in tobacco.
‘Raleigh’
Sir Walter Raleigh was a complex character of the Elizabethan era. A child soldier, a privateer, a searcher for El Dorado, a colonizer of the Americas, a courtier of Elizabeth I and perhaps responsible for introducing tobacco to England. But in the end he was accused of treason and executed at the chopping block, his head embalmed, placed in a decorative velvet pouch and given to his widow. He was celebrated in his time for his achievements for crown and country and opinion was that his execution was unjust. Here, he is indicted by contemporary eyes for the brutality of slavery, as he championed a labor intensive cash crop that fueled the triangle trade. The wide collar made of sea-softened clay pipe fragments are from the Thames River and acquired from a local mudlarker.
‘White Devil Docked’
‘White Devil Docked’ is modeled on the traditional face jugs of the American South. The unglazed porcelain and earthenware shards were collected along the shoreline near Jersey City, New Jersey and presumably the waste material of the Jersey Porcelain and Earthenware Company or the American Pottery Manufacturing Company, both active during the early to mid 19th Century. Shells and stones from the site comprise parts of the head and the pointed tongue is European ballast flint, also used in the porcelain manufacturing process. The docked nose (docking, or rhinotomy, or cutting off the nasal cartilage was a form of punishment and social shaming in various cultures) is the broken buttocks of a small porcelain figure. The large ears on this grotesque and awkward vessel suggests a loving cup (or hating cup).
‘Extraction’
25 samples of sand collected from beaches throughout the New York City area encased in a glass beaker displayed like strata in a geologic core sample.
‘Harmensen’s Demise’ (photograph)
Hendrick Harmensen , “who may be the first white man that turned a furrow in” Maspeth, Queens in the 1640s and “having previously been an armourer in the Dutch service, was accustomed to forging tomahawks for the Indians round about him; but on that certain occasion” (retribution for Dutch Governor Kieft’s unprovoked and immoral attacks on Lenape and Wappinger families) they “assaulted him, and one of them gave him a fatal blow, and terminated his life with one of the very instruments of death that he had made for him”. From Annals of Newtown, James Riker, Jr. 1852. (axe heads found in NYC waterways)
‘Tumbling Monuments’ (series)
To many indigenous nations the turtle represents North America (or the Earth itself). In their oral tradition the Iroquois speak of Muskrat depositing mud on Turtles back until it formed an immense landmass. For this reason some Indigenous people refer to North America as ‘Turtle Island’. In ‘New World, Turtle Island’ the hollowed out turtle shell is surmounted by crumbling icons of Western Civilization. Ionic columns made of clay tobacco pipe stem fragments found along the edges of the New York City harbor. A similar narrative is invoked in its companion piece ‘New World, Pacific Islands’. Other scale monuments were created during the George Floyd protests during the summer of 2020 including ‘Cristobal Comes Down’, ‘Horse and Rider’ and ‘Historical Record’. If the aforementioned are tumbling by means of determined protests, ‘Unknown Soldiers’ is perhaps crumbling instead. It is a diminutive display of the neglect for and disinterest of our ailing veterans and other essential infrastructure - military or otherwise. The minute, lonely park bench invites the viewer to look closely and take their time to decipher the inverted bas relief (one half of a two part mold of pre-WWII lead soldiers). Though the reverse side is more dilapidated with its fragile framing exposed, the stout timber buttress lends hope.
‘Tobias Filpotus Felix Filium’, (‘Tobey Philpot’s Fortunate Son’)
A pair of columns rise above heaps of empty vessels like twin family trees bridged by a frieze bearing the name. They are topped by figurative capitals- an inverted Tobey sitting on his chamber pot and a doll head in the likeness of a young gentleman of Washington Irving’s ilk. This colossus in miniature forms a gateway monitored by Frozen Charlotte sentries and other surveillance systems.
‘Poseidon’s Peril’
A dismembered and hollowed-out Poseidon perches atop this cascade of found miniature vessels transformed into ancient amphorae - broken, empty and dry.
‘YOG-64’ (photograph)
Although this vessel has been in the muddy grip of the Arthur Kill for a half century, it began its life in the Pacific where it bore witness to three nuclear blasts. YOG-64 (the US hull identification for a yard oiler) was built for the Navy in Portland, OR in 1944 and deployed to Enewetak atoll in the Marshall Islands to provide ship-to-shore support during Operation Sandstone, America’s third series of nuclear tests in 1948. The three tests, X-ray (37 kilotons), Yoke (49 kilotons) and Zebra (18 kilotons and deemed optimal) were so successful that the new ‘Mark IV’ device would become the first mass-produced nuclear weapon. After decontamination at Pearl Harbor the ship was purchased by Reinauer Transportation Co on Staten Island then eventually sold for scrap. Self portrait, Rossville, Staten Island 2005
‘On Collecting; or ‘History, You’re Soaking in It’
Essay accompanying installation at the bronx River Art Center
The very act of collecting is integral to my practice and takes me to the farthest reaches and most remote areas of greater New York City. Materials for sculpture are gathered during this ongoing exploration of Gotham’s extensive coastline, slogging across sweltering marshlands and sandy beaches, clambering over derelict city docks and ship graveyards and spelunking the ubiquitous rip rap berms. Every excursion is documented and GPS tracked, adding to a collection of delineated pathways that are uploaded to a satellite image service creating an ever-expanding band around the urban landmass.
In addition to the vast collection accumulated over the past two decades, these lone perambulations have provided me with a virtual emporium of materials to source from when specific items are required for certain pieces: nineteenth century glass and ceramic shards pulled from Tottenville mud, twisted bullet fragments by the thousands sifted from dunes in the Rockaways, mid century hypodermic needles and shot glasses picked at Dead Horse Bay, ancient fossils scratched from gravel laden West Jetty and Hudson Valley-made bricks from nearly every shoreline in the area. The region’s history of creating ‘made land’ by infilling swamps and marshes to add more real estate dates back to the Dutch colonial era and continues until the construction of Battery Park City in the nineteen seventies. Wind, weather and the relentless tides peel away the layers revealing what was captured within the landscape.
The manifold items in the collection are generally found at low tide and therefore, I am led to the shore by the lunar cycles and tidal movements. It is a cosmic process that determines what is available for ‘harvest’ at the shore. Though following the tides is a reliable method, what is visible today may not be tomorrow, as the sea has a constant sway over the ever-changing landscape. Being in the field brings inspiration and ideas that are later manifested in the studio. And it is there that the chaos of the ebb and flow is ordered. Objects are cleaned (often in acid baths to remove organic matter), dried and sorted into categories such as glass, ceramic and metal- a testament to what remains over time in the intertidal zone. Finally, a research phase brings context and insight to the work as the amalgam takes shape and guides the conceptual direction.
Each component has its own singular history that mirrors our collective past, reflecting prior transgressions and suggesting what the future might hold. For me, the briny patinas and softened edges of these once scattered remains evoke loss and recovery, belonging and deep time. Like subaqueous concretions from the bottom of the harbor I create artwork made of the City itself.
The two artworks presented here are “Raleigh” and “Equus Colonialis.” Sir Walter Raleigh was a complex character of the Elizabethan era - a child soldier and privateer, a searcher for El Dorado, a colonizer of the Americas and the one responsible for introducing tobacco to England. But in the end he was accused of treason and executed at the chopping block, his head embalmed, placed in a decorative velvet pouch and given to his widow. He was celebrated in his time for his achievements for crown and country and opinion was that his execution was unjust. Here, he is indicted by contemporary eyes for the brutality of slavery, as he championed a labor intensive cash crop that fueled the triangle trade. The partial head is constructed of found ceramic shards gathered from New York City shores while the collar is made of clay pipe fragments sourced from the Thames River in London.
“Equus Colonialis” encapsulates the parallel histories of the modern horse and Chinese porcelain. Although horses evolved in the Americas four million years ago they vanished from the fossil record ten thousand years ago. Thirteen returned as cargo on the vessels of Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortez when he arrived at the Yucatan Peninsula in 1519. From there, Indigenous peoples brought them northward along extensive trade networks where they have become a lasting symbol of the American West. Around the same time, in the early seventeenth century, Portuguese merchants were loading their ships with Chinese porcelain bound for markets in Europe. Soon after, the Dutch East India Company captured such a vessel laden with a hundred thousand ceramic pieces and returned to Holland igniting a craze that brought millions more to the continent. The auspicious blue and white designs depicting gardens, birds and figures are still produced today. The majority of shards used to make this piece were collected, quite appropriately at Dead Horse Bay, Brooklyn.
Also on display is an array of artifacts including architectural stone and mosaic remnants, bricks with finger impressions, a Revolutionary War era cannonball supported by a trio of fishing net weights, a variety of glass and ceramic vessels and smoking pipe fragments.
“I had a dream. In this dream, a great earthquake had shook the world and had upset the sea level, and New York Harbor had been drained as dry as a bathtub when the plug is pulled. I was down on the bottom, poking around, looking things over. There were hundreds of ships of all kinds lying on their sides in the mud, and among them were some wormy old wrecks that went down long years ago, and there were rusty anchors down there and dunnage and driftwood and old hawsers and tugboat bumpers and bailing wire and tin cans and bottles and stranded eels and a skeleton standing waist-deep in a barrel of cement that the barrel had rotted off of. The rats had left the piers and were down on the bottom, eating the eels, and the gulls were flopping about, jerking eels away from the rats. I came across an old wooden wreck all grown over with seaweed, an old, old Dutch wreck. She had a hole in her, and I pulled the seaweed away and looked in and I saw some chests in there that had money spilling out of them, and I tried my best to crawl in.”
‘The Bottom of the Harbor’ - Joseph Mitchell