MIASMA (2022)

‘Miasma’ is Greek for ‘pollution’ and first meant blood spilled in a crime, then became connected with disease. For the Greeks, contagion was caused by guilt for wrongdoing, and the only cure was atonement by the guilty person. Until germ theory arose in the 1880s, later miasma theory held that diseases like cholera and the Black Death were caused by a miasma, or noxious “bad air.” The Miasma installation considered how people have dealt with contagion over time, using excerpts offering explanations of cause, attributions of blame, and coping mechanisms. These texts were executed in hand embroidery and laser-cut wood. The work also featured sculptural constructions that incorporated familiar objects suggesting our vulnerability (e.g., tripods made of crutches), with a special look at the role of chance and fate.

waferboard, particle board, plywood, Masonite, basswood, steel, cotton hand embroidery, laser-cut plywood, netting, beads, animated incandescent lights
9’ x 16’-8” x 14’2”’   (2022)

 

CAUSAE et CURAE (2022)

This installation was a response to both the gallery space and the ongoing COVID pandemic. The bifurcated platform echoed the division of the windows, while also reflecting our social conditions: a world in which we share many experiences but cannot seem to communicate with one another. Elements included anonymous green vessels on the cart, drawers full of oversized ‘covids,’ and a chained book (à la medieval practice) that contained excerpts from Hildegard von Bingen’s Causae et Curae of 1151-1158, detailing treatments for various ailments. The overall sensibility of the installation was expressed in the diverse citations that occupied the windows, as well as the tiny figures encased in domes on the window sills.

wood, Masonite, latex paint, plastic tile, assorted papers, vellum, metal, acrylic paint, rubber, screen-printed vinyl, found objects
8′ x 16’ x 8’   (2022)

SENESCENCE (2021)

Senescence was my contribution to a nearly year-long collaborative project in which artists played a visual version of the game “telephone.” Participants responded to a collaborator’s artwork, one by one, without knowledge of the foregoing works. The entire visual thread was revealed only at the exhibition. Inheriting a painting of twelve roses (one pink), Senescence attempted to engage that flower painting, ideals of beauty (as implied by the scientific text), and the experiences of a year of pandemic.

wood, paper, vellum, acrylic, gesso, found objects
14” x 14” x 3”   (2021)

SURVEYING DESIRE XVI: OSSUARY (2019)

Crafted for an exhibition of diverse ossuaries (repositories for remains), this work continues the Surveying Desire series’ exploration of loneliness and the search for companionship, understood as both individual longing and cultural force. It features a 14-inch bronze wishbone housed in a large glass dome, seated atop a stand made of crutches with a gilded lead heart as counterweight. Ossuary proposes the wishbone as both relic and instrument of desire, its broken state an elegy to fulfillment as much as mortality.

wood, bronze, glass, aluminum, brass, lead, paint, laminate
11’ x 8’ x 7’5”   (2019)

COSMOGONY 2.4: THE COSMIC EGG (2019)

This installation was inspired by the natural history specimens housed in the Richter Museum at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, which includes one of the largest bird egg collections in North America. Cosmogony 2.4 conceives the cosmos as a woman’s domestic space, complete with a celestial globe floor lamp and a modern Manus Dei  (the hand of god emerging from a cloud device, as seen in medieval art.) The wheeled sewing trolley might recall Apollo’s chariot that drove the sun across the sky. It is an incubator for a host of potential cosmic eggs, ranging from the natural (extending from sparrow to ostrich) to products of today’s mass culture. The eggs are nestled amongst paper shreds replicating Carl Richter’s collecting notebooks. One of his notebook pages is presented as an embroidery, along with two others depicting the cosmic egg and the Chinese story of the universe emerging from an egg.

wood, latex paint, paper, plastic, plaster, carpet, embroideries, found objects, incandescent and LED light
11’ x 8’ x 7’5”   (2019)

RETROSPECTACLE (2017)

A meta-installation of sorts, this project surveyed over 35 years of work. Combining relics from many previous installations (objects, texts, light elements, and viewing devices) along with photographs of projects, it became a work in its own right. A feature was a “library” at the center of the gallery which encouraged viewers to sit and peruse print ephemera documenting the works.

mixed media with incandescent lights and photographs
62’9” x 51’ 3” (2017)

TERRA FIRMA III (2017)

In this installation, the binocular viewer was stationed across the building from the art gallery. One used the viewer to look through the transparent map (marked with places I have lived, exhibited, worked, or traveled) to the aligned panel. The panel bore a story by Jorge Borges describing a map made to the full scale of the kingdom; it was overlaid with shoes and glasses bearing maps, and hemispheres of soil from places I have lived.

wood, metal, vinyl, found objects
9’6” x 7’3” x 90’   (2017)

 

COSMOGONY 2.2 (2016)

Like its predecessors, this work proposes a creation story. Here the universe is imagined as the product of a stereotypical grandmother’s handiwork: in domestic scale, populated by household floor tile, fussy furniture, and an antimacassar with the four elements. Vintage electric fans operate as the four winds, and an animated electric candle flickers below a wooden “book” of cosmological and alchemical diagrams. The flamboyant clock functions as the sun, while the glass orb features dice, miniature globes, bingo balls, and game parts. The cosmos is not merely a “big bang” but also where we live; this piece imagines the universe as a cozy construction akin to a nicely tatted doily operated on by aspects of chance.

wood, tile, marble, bronze, found objects, animated incandescent light
6’2” x 6’11” x 6’2”   (2016)

COSMOGONY 2.1 (2016)

wood, latex paint, steel, gold leaf, plastic, found objects, animated incandescent lights

Investigating how we find our place in the world, this work borrowed the notion of a stage set where front and back are different realities. Here the front created a universe laced with creation stories, dotted with the stars of the zodiac, and traversed by a sad little cart on rails. The ends featured 20th century versions of the four elements, while the rough back bore tiny people in domes on gold leaf escutcheons, illuminated by nightlights.

wood, latex paint, steel, gold leaf, plastic, found objects, animated incandescent lights
11’ x 14’ x 4’6”   (2016)

COSMOGONY 2.0 (2014)

Long strings of creation stories from different cultures ringed the gallery, encircling a central tower with a concave lighthouse mirror. Tracks around the perimeter bore doll cribs, each with items that suggested different cosmological theories (a clockwork universe, chance, etc.). Additionally, rolling typing stands bore electric candles and wooden chained “books” with alchemical and cosmological diagrams. A seemingly infinite ladder appeared to reach to the heavens through the skylight, all suggesting a universe under construction.

steel, wood, rope, vinyl, VCT tile, mirrors, found objects, incandescent lights
19’6” x 41’ x 41’   (2014)

 

KOSMOS (2012)

An installation at the Sedge Meadow Cultural Residency excavated an upstairs room in the old farmhouse, articulating the parallel between the director’s history as a child of the farm and that of Alexander von Humboldt (the title referencing Humboldt’s magnum opus). Texts, images, and objects interacted to explore the relation of gender and nature. The centerpiece was a wooden magnifying periscope that allowed one to see the landscape through the window text, evoking multiple ways of knowing the world.

wood, vinyl, graphite, mirrors, inkjet prints, cast iron, found objects, incandescent lights
8’ x 8’ x11’   (2012)

ALEMBIC I (2011)

Alembics are alchemical vessels; this intervention in the Allis Art Museum (the collector’s home) imagined collecting as a set of physical, economic, and social alchemies. Museum cases and contents were rearranged according to idiosyncratic taxonomies. Pools of iron slag were added (the Allises began in iron manufacturing), and contemporary objects with iron patina were slyly inserted amongst the collections, as were replicas of documents from archives, including some text fragments cast in iron. Large golden drawings replicated 19th century Allis patent diagrams, transmuting iron into gold literally and figuratively, as such items provided the wealth to amass the collection. Finally, the center table featured a lens that presented the world upside down.

iron, gold ink, glassine, found objects, lenses, marble, wood, gold leaf, iron patina
12’ x 25’4” x 12’2”   (2011)

ARCA ARCANA (2008)

This hinged, rolling structure functioned as a sort of ark for inscrutable creatures, complete with a porthole on top (much like the opening in the biblical ark). It also recalled steamer trunks and salesmen’s sample cases. The ark’s creatures reflected the notion of the singularity (non-biological intelligence and organic/artificial hybrids), and were also displayed on golden wall shelves set off by large golden curtains, and documented in black and white photographs with velvet mats.

wood, metal, photographs, gold leaf, fabric, found objects
11’ 1.5” x 14’10” x 11’8.5”   (2008)

SURVEYING DESIRE XV: OVERTURES (2006)

This installation at the Overture Center referenced the history of the site as a retail department store (which included a bridal section). One could hear personal ads through the headphones. The center structure was a “fitting room” divided by a curtain screening the opposite side from view, and had identical ear trumpet devices and a little iconic house on each side. Large white curtains were dotted with over 1400 personal ads, while the windows bore decorative signs of the zodiac. The title referred both to the name of the site and the difficulties and commercialization of “making overtures.”

wood, latex paint, linoleum, fabric, tile, iron-on transfer, vinyl, steel, electronics, found objects, audio
12’ x 71’ x 32’   (2006-07)

SURVEYING DESIRE XIV: FORTUNA (2004)

The notion of chance was foregrounded in this work, with a reference to the goddess Fortuna depicted as standing on a ball (indicating the unsteady nature of fortune). A metal hand levitating out of a reversed clock face mimicked the “hand of god” often seen in medieval prints. The back of the work contained a grouping of tiny figures, each trapped in a numbered magnifying box like those used for insect collection, while the bingo cage on the front featured similar figures mounted on tiny wooden bingo balls, with one pair having emerged down the chute.

wood, linoleum, metal, Plexiglas, found objects
54” x 18” x 17”   (2004)

SURVEYING DESIRE XIII: OBSERVATORY (2004)

This gallery was reminiscent of varied structures: operating theatres, Shaker barns, and observatories. The central platform was constructed to mirror the floorplan; one climbed it to use the telescope to read small horoscope texts in the upper windows, the perimeters of which were blacked out. The circular pattern on the platform was a diagram for siting one’s house to maximum advantage based on latitude and astronomical data. The circular texts on the walls were drawn from diverse sources that overlapped astronomy and desire, ranging from a romance novel to astronomer John Hershel, and were populated by tiny people on little platforms. The curtains articulated the catwalk ambulatory, and were covered with hundreds of personal ads for romance. Central ideas were the telescope as a tool of unrequited desire—creating the illusion that one’s object was within reach—and the relation of seeing to possessing.

wood, steel, latex paint, fabric, iron-on transfer, vinyl, found objects
40’ x 54’ x 54’    (2004)

SURVEYING DESIRE XII: FICTIONS (2004)

This work explored the apparatus of longing through elements of scale which were derived from the physical layout of the gallery. The tall space at the front was occupied by a ten-foot observation tower from which one espied small objects of fate and desire that were mounted on a panel floating high above the floor. The lower space in the rear of the gallery was ringed with giant fragments of romance novel texts and hugely scaled items of fortune. The “fictions” of the title referred not only to the included personal ads, horoscopes, and romance texts, but to the stories the culture creates and those we tell ourselves about being alone. The overall effect was reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, and experiencing dislocations through scale paralleled the dislocation of isolation. At the same time, the expectant telephones, the romance texts, and giant objects exuded a poignant hopefulness.

wood, latex paint, fabric, foam, drywall compound, papier maché, inkjet prints, lenses, vinyl, found objects
12’4” x 44’7” x 56’   (2004)

SURVEYING DESIRE X: QUEST (2003)

This installation occupied the hallway display case, central gallery, and exterior terrace at Saint Cloud State University. Conflating the search for a northwest passage (Zebulon Pike was among those exploring the area) with the pursuit of companionship, paired texts from early explorers and romance novels adorned all forty-four panes of glass. The central HVAC column became a giant compass rose with illuminated figures on each side. Accompanied by additional elements—including paddles and crutches, and the four winds as electric fans—Quest found remarkable parallels between geographic and romantic quests, and entwined issues of race and gender.

wood, latex paint, vinyl, chalk, color photocopies, found objects, animated incandescent lights
10’ x 54’ x 129’   (2003)

TERRA FIRMA I: DISTANCE DECAY (2003)

A collaboration with ecologist Jeff Nekola, this work investigated how we know a place. It derived from walks along the cardinal directions, starting with the gallery as ground zero. The ghostly frieze on the front incorporated approaches like maps, statistics, histories, and diaries, while the back featured depictions of items found on the four walks through graphs, photos, electron micrographs, sketches, and direct prints. A scope allowed examination of an illuminated map and lit niches displaying the objects themselves. The intent was to examine not only methodologies for piecing the world into something comprehensible, but to explore the unspoken world views implicit in various means of representation. “Seeing is believing,” but is subject to bias and error.  Similarly, such languages as photography, graphs, maps, and statistics embody an air of truth, but are no less driven by their creator’s presuppositions. This leaves the question of just how firm Terra is beneath our feet.

wood, latex paint, polycarbonate, inkjet prints, photocopies, Polaroids, graphite, watercolor, ink, vinyl, found objects, incandescent lights, neon
8’ x 12’ x 11.5’   (2003)

SURVEYING DESIRE VIII: RECONNAISSANCE (2001)

Derived from peculiarities of the gallery space (a low entry followed by a space over twenty feet high, columns and beams set askew, and imposing audio speakers), Reconnaissance considered the desire for companionship as it intersects with culture and technology. The drapes bore 1700 different personal ads, while the surrounding walls were scattered with tiny framed horoscopes and fortunes about romance, along with reliquaries featuring wishbones, dice, amulets and other objects related to the fulfillment of desire. A ten-foot high observation tower occupied the center; one climbed the stairs to utilize a telescope mounted at the top, while an audio loop played fragments of romantic dialogue from soap operas.

wood, latex paint, fabric, iron-on decals, found objects, incandescent light, audio
13’ x 31’ x 47’   (2001)

SURVEYING DESIRE VII: THE PATHOLOGY OF THE HEART (2000)

Deriving from the site’s former use as a medical clinic, this work melded anatomical and romantic hearts. A maze-like space opened with a “take-a-number” machine and led through didactic anatomical materials and texts from diverse sources referencing  the heart in culture and medicine. Passing wall friezes of romance novel images lit by electric candles, one eventually discovered a “waiting room” fronted with romance magazines and a pile of number tickets, suggesting a long wait at both the clinic and for companionship.

wood, Plexiglas, color photocopies, found objects, incandescent lights
8’10” x 28’6” x 29’6”   (2000)

SPEAKING VOLUMES: THIS WILL KILL THAT (1997)

 

This collaboration with Paul Emmons illuminated the history of the Philadelphia Art Alliance building (a former mansion) for their exhibition about architecture and texts. Our work used Victor Hugo’s “lost” chapter—“This Will Kill That”—from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in which Hugo says the “Bible of Paper” (printing) will extinguish his beloved “Bible of Stone” (the medieval cathedral). Our piece ran the length of the building in three directions, articulating the lost domestic plan of the mansion, while investigating the bonds between books and buildings.

wood, sheetrock, Plexiglas, vinyl, dry transfer lettering, brass, acetate, mirror, paper, plastic, found objects
10’9”” x 70’7” x 38’5”   (1997)

SURVEYING DESIRE II: PROSPECT & REFUGE (1997)

Borrowing a term for the ideal placement of human habitation (somewhere that allows both “prospect”—seeing what’s around—and “refuge”—the ability to screen oneself), this work utilized multiple viewing devices mounted on tripods. Large golden curtains created symmetry with the entrance and framed little domes with poignant scenarios. The end walls featured over 150 electric candles that illuminated framed personal ads, paralleling devotional chapels.

wood, latex paint, fabric, brass, found objects, animated incandescent lights
22’ x 22’ x 22’   (1997)

MNEME XXXI: DWELLING IN THE PLAN (1995)

This collaboration with architect Paul Emmons was a commission for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning. The work reconsiders the relationship of the space of a design and the space of our inhabitation: the site is not only the building itself, but also the life of the building. Dwelling is not a singular object but numerous elements to be discovered as one moves about. Similarly, the texts employed articulate many modes of knowing, reflecting diverse voices across a spectrum of student, staff, and faculty memories; classical/critical architectural texts, and administrative documents. We correlated the explicit grid of the building to the working drawing index sheet, recreating the building’s plan in ¼ scale as three-dimensional components. We chose places where the plan “cheated” the grid, pointing up the gap between drawing (the plan) and building (dwelling). A final element was a false manhole cover cast in iron and placed in the tiny green space opposite the true manhole cover, thus “repairing” the symmetry of the rigidly gridded space.

wood, latex paint, vinyl, aluminum, brass, graphite, Plexiglas, found objects, cast iron components throughout four-story building + grounds
(1993-95)

MNEME XXVI: GILBERT’S STORY (SEARCH FOR TOMORROW) (1993)

Here multiple curtains recounted a friend’s tale of his early experience with television and his discovery of soap operas. The latter proved a great disappointment when it turned out that “Search for Tomorrow” was not the futuristic adventure he was expecting. The antique televisions all bore paired texts from “Tom Corbett and the Space Cadets” and “Search for Tomorrow.”

wood, fabric, vinyl, latex paint, found objects, incandescent light
8’ x 19’ x 10’   (1993)

MNEME XXVII: DOLHUIS [MADHOUSE] (1993)

This installation in the Dutch city of Nijmegen entailed a floor maze with German commentary about the Netherlands. The maze structure was mirrored onto the walls and intertwined with site plans from three eras as well as historical and theoretical quotes in English and Nederlands. The back wall was the site as Roman graveyard. The right wall showed the medieval monastery that functioned as a  plague house and later as an asylum, while the left wall bore the 19th century bank of lending (the current building). The structure in the center was a recreation of one of the cells from the asylum. The site history and similarity of the Dutch “dolhuis” (meaning “madhouse”) to “dollhouse” drove the concept of the piece as an investigation of the intersection of faith, madness and money, with a central concern as to the nature of what constitutes home.

wood, polystyrene, drywall compound, vinyl, graphite, latex paint, dry transfer lettering, found objects, incandescent lights
14’ x 17’11” x 26’   (1993)

MNEME XXV: TRAUM [DREAM] (1992)

This installation in Düsseldorf encircled the entire gallery with large text offering advice to travelers; smaller English and German statements about notions of home and travel were overlaid. These ranged from the Odyssey to nineteenth century arguments for seizing Yosemite from native peoples to Hansel and Gretel snacking on the witch’s house. The centerpiece was a rug and skewed bed of translucent maps of my home town and Düsseldorf, respectively, with their central rivers aligned. The bed was animated with flickering light (suggesting the bed as hearth), and illuminated the gallery at night, proposing that home becomes where one lays one’s head.

wood, vinyl, vellum, oil crayon, cotton, gold lamé thread, animated incandescent lights
11’7” x 12’9” x 16’1”   (1992)

MNEME XXIII: TRACE (1991)

Embodying the “if only these walls could talk” maxim, this large installation featured scholarly, literary and personal memory statements. These texts were rendered using diverse processes, both positive and negative (adding and subtracting), and two-dimensional and relief. The sheetrock support was broken away, revealing metal mesh and the wall beyond. Domestic articles—including a floating rug and chair—completed the scene.

wood, sheetrock, latex paint, metal lath, vinyl, wallpaper, graphite, found objects
8’3” x 20’ x 2’   (1991)

MNEME XXII: BLOCK 38 LOT 10 (1991)

Occupying the entire Walkers Point Center for the Arts, this collaboration with Paul Emmons drew on the history of the site. The structures recreated the small rooms originally found on the second floor (housing for workers) and embedded objects in illuminated walls, echoing the practice of medieval builders’ sacrifices and conflating domestic and gallery display. Each panel had a relevant theme, with texts from history, theory, and personal memory.

wood, sheetrock, metal lath, acrylic, latex paint, graphite, wallpaper, vinyl, found objects, incandescent lights
8’3” x 23’9” x 67’3” (1991)

MNEME XVIII: RITES OF PASSAGE (1990)

Filling a long gallery, Rites of Passage evoked a progression through childhood toward adolescence. Changing memory texts were projected through a labyrinth of screens and played over marbleized walls, pedestals, and objects. Moving through the space, viewers also became screens, bearing the reminiscences on their bodies in a literal embodiment of shared memory.

 

wood, fiberglass screen, latex paint, vinyl lettering, found objects, slide projections
8’4” x 14’4” x 68’   (1990)

MNEME XVII: THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME (1990)

This sculpture suggests that while one might “plant a flag” somewhere on earth, home is still often a transient proposition, defined (at least in an earlier age) by where the television is. Varied memories regarding home are scattered across the curtains and the little transparent house, which is illuminated by a flickering television.

metal, wood, fabric, dry transfer lettering, plastic, found objects, animated incandescent lights
57.5” x 15.5” x 14.5”   (1990)

 

 

MNEME XVI: LEARNING TO DRAW (1989)

Inspired by acquiring a vintage Jon Gnagy “Learn to Draw the Police Dog” kit, this installation featured the kit displayed on a fabricated desk and chair (based on furniture hand-made by my grandfather), along with a sadly drawn attempt at following the directions. The TV emitted a flickering blue light and a continuous audio loop of German shepherds barking.

wood, latex paint, carpet, found objects, incandescent light, & audio
8’ x 7’ x 17’6”   (1989)

MNEME XII: VOICES (1988)

Here the gallery was bifurcated by fiberglass screen walls, their openings marked with neon lintels. The primary structure was a free-standing room that featured a marbled interior with golden memory texts from various individuals. Viewers were invited to sit in the chair to watch animated fire in the television set, accompanied by audio fragments from vintage TV programs. The installation contemplated television as a modern hearth, and the mixture of media and personal voices that constitute contemporary culture. Additional memory texts were placed throughout the building as extensions of the work.

wood, latex paint, vinyl, metal, fiberglass, wool carpet, found objects, animated incandescent light, neon, audio
9’6” x 29’4” x 56’   (1988)

MNEME VI: FRIENDS OF THE FAMILY (1985)

Referring to spending Sunday evenings at my grandmother’s house, eating supper off TV trays and watching television, this work presented glowing wall units based on the architecture of her favorite local drive-in. Each displayed a snapshot of a duo from an old television program (Timmy & Lassie, Lucy & Desi, the Lone Ranger & Tonto, etc.). The photos were made directly off screen and hence included characteristic scan lines. Audio fragments from such programs—often highlighting relationships—accompanied the piece.

wood, latex paint, metal, Plexiglas, carpet, found objects, incandescent light, neon, audio
7’ x 24’ x 2’   (1985)

MNEME I: KENILWORTH, MILWAUKEE (1984)

The word mneme comes from the Greek for “memory,” as in mnemonics and Mnemosyne (goddess of memory and mother of the muses). In this work, people climbed the steps to view an enshrined floor tile rescued from my graduate studio in the Kenilworth building. The structure featured a spirit level in the pediment and a glass keystone, with glass blocks and green paint mirroring the Kenilworth building. Card racks turned on end and illuminated with turquoise neon tubes functioned as fluted columns for the shrine.

wood, metal, glass, latex paint, plastic, rubber, found objects, incandescent light, neon
10’6” x 8’ x 10’9” (1984)