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<< Back The Art of Trash
I think of all trash that we make everyday. Most of it goes off to places unknown.
Out of sight and out of mind is the standard mentality, but in reality it doesn't really go away.
It just gets moved around.
The piece below was slowly compiled from stuff I pick up on my morning walks out front on the beach. It's like a mirror for the things that happen there. The trash people leave behind tells a story. So I wanted to tell a story, but not a time based story.
There's the sun in the top left, the beach on bottom right, the wharf on the bottom left, the clouds and sky on the top. It's all slightly representational, but could be easily overlooked. In the middle is the horizon line, which doubles as the blast from a gun.
I put the gun and the bullett there and made it rip the piece in two. I find it intersting how all these fun times are going on at the beach, but in other parts of the world there's a massive full scale war going on. Yet over here, people are buying soda pop. leaving trash around, getting drunk, using needles, losing money, and basically doing what they always do. This piece brings the two together.
Cho Seung Hui
The next phase of the piece came after hearing about the horrible events at Virginia Tech. This piece helps verbalize some of those emotions.
The cracks running through the piece are violent and red - like descruction. The vertical format suggests and asian feel and when I started putting wood
down on the piece, the chinese characters just sort of appeared. They represent kindness, strength and peace - all states of mind that are needed in the present circumstances.
This work is a classic exmample of how ideas come together for me as an artist. First I gather some raw materials, and think about my ideas in a very vague general way. Nothing too specific. I let these ideas stew and simmer for days, weeks, months - however long it takes. The concepts bounce around in my head and mix up and new relationships and new concepts are born, but all subconsiously. Eventually I feel it's time to get started and what comes out is not only to the world, but new to myself as well. For it is rare for me to make a piece with a final image in my mind. I just go with the flow.
The American Flag
The trash that makes up these flags was trash that the corporation who made that trash didn't feel like removing. Since corporations run our country, I figured it was apt
to make art representing our flag from thier waste. It's a tribute to their past and thier future. If the world were still run by religion, then I'd make a cross out of it, but those days are past
and soon the corporations day will pass too. And what annoys me about that fact is that soon it will be someone else's problem. The local people are the ones stuck with the big mess.
It's really not that big of a deal to ruin a couple of acres in the middle of the desert, but it's not an isolated incident. It happens all the time... just ask the EPA, or the Navajo.
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This piece spent a long time in the making. After months of gathering junk, shells, trash, wood and other odds and ends on the beach, I was still at a loss on how to incorporate it all together.
The initial 'Boardwalk' piece took far less 'stuff' then I had inticipated, so I had plenty of working material left. I started some preliminary sketches by placing
the pieces on some cardboard and I came up with some interesting concepts, but nothing worth creating. The idea of the cracks
flowing through the piece came as an accident as I broke a few of the sand dollars. It added a continuity and cohesiveness throughout the piece.
My version of the American Flag is made from trash.
The materials used for these pieces were discarded remnants of an old mining camp up in the Tungsten Hills. Wood slats, old corrugated metal, barbed wire and various other
junk scattered around after the profits disappeared. The materials were weathered by the nature and ruined by man. Bullet holes punctuated everything, giving more symbolism and relavence
to America as it stands today. Instead of the stars, I used the bullet holes to represent the states. It's more tangible and relative to the way we live our life, then some
dreamy star up in the sky. The barbed wire surrounding Flag #1, can be viewed on many different levels. It could represent the strength of America, our physical might.
Or it could represent a border. A barbed wire border to keep people out... or to keep them in. Maybe it's representative of our xenophobia - our desire to stay
apart from the rest of the world. It really could mean anything, that's why I don't get too caught up in all this art theory talk. I'll stick with making art and let the people who have too much
time on thier hands make up theories and categories for art.
