Hi, good afternoon. Hello everyone and welcome to the Nasher Sculpture Center. I'm Curator of Education Anna Smith and today it's my pleasure to introduce Hugh Hayden.
Before we begin, a bit of housekeeping. First, please take a moment to silence your cell phones. Next, we invite you to join us again in two weeks for a conversation with Samara Golden on September 28th.
For today, we want to thank supporters of Hugh Hayden Homecoming, which include leading support by Taka, and additional support by Listen Gallery, Jessica and Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas Art Fair Foundation, and Howard and Cindy Vrchovsky. Thanks as well to Frost Bank for leading support of our 2024 exhibitions. Now to Hugh Hayden. In a time when cultural entities are increasingly facing institutional critique and scrutiny, the Nasher may be the only museum that is pleased to say we have skeletons in our closet. Luckily for us, they are gorgeous skeletons hand-carved from white oak as part of a richly layered exhibition that interrogates the American dream and unpacks aspects of Hayden's formative years in North Texas.
Hugh Hayden was born in Dallas and now lives in New York City. His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in the United States and abroad. Recent solo exhibitions include public art installations Huff and a Puff at the De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum and Briarpatch at the Madison Square Park Conservancy, which later traveled to the North Carolina Museum of Art and Dumbarton Oaks Gardens. Hayden has also had solo exhibitions presented at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Blaffer Art Museum Houston, Listen Gallery New York, Clearing Brussels, Listen Gallery London, Princeton University Art Museum, and White Columns New York.
Recent group exhibitions include Forest of Dreams, Contemporary Tree Sculpture at Frederick Mayer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and NGV Triennial at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. Hayden holds positions on advisory councils at Columbia University School of the Arts, Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University and Cornell College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. His work is part of public collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, LACMA, the Studio Museum of Harlem, the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Princeton University Art Museum, Smart Museum Chicago, and more. In conversation with Hayden is NASHR curator Dr. Lee Arnold.
Dr. Arnold's most recent exhibition, 2023's groundswell women of land art was described in press as a pivotal moment in redefining the narrative of land art. Her work on Hugh Hayden Homecoming has been a labor of love over five years in the making, so I won't eat up any more time leading into their conversation together. Please join me now in welcoming Hugh Hayden and Leigh Arnold. Hey.
Howdy. Hi. How are you? Great.
How are you? Pretty good. Thank you, Anna, for the awesome introduction as always.
Thank you everyone for joining us this afternoon to hear Hugh speak about his homecoming. In conversation. In conversation.
Yeah. You're not going to give a slide lecture. No, this is not a lecture.
I think The entire show includes different bodies of work that you've really refined over the years and it's kind of a culmination of the past 15 years of your sculptural vocabulary. So in many senses it is a survey. Yes.
Yes, but it is all new work. A survey of my like different parts of my practice. Yes.
Exhibited through new works. Yes, exactly. The work on the slide blending in, it's upstairs on view, but in and of itself you today just described it as almost a little survey considering the different materials that it comprises, the different themes, athletics, youth, maybe some social anxieties.
being in a locker room. Yeah, like all the different components that make it, it's like the bark exterior on like this sort of football uniform. But it also has the helmet, the skeleton that is the hanger, the sort of infrastructure that allows it to holding it up.
But also it's one locker that's open and like a vignette of 12. So it's kind of representing one person within a group, kind of trying to blend in maybe to the group. Seeing like the sort of interior closet as in the form of a locker. Yeah, as a guy in Texas who grew up here in Dallas, there was a certain height and size.
You're kind of this obligatory expectation to play football. And so sort of a little bit of the piece of this idea of kind of blending in to the expectations of what people want you to do. But I wouldn't say whether or not this is critical in either direction. It's just sort of showcasing. This idea of being a part of something, being a part of a team, to some regards.
And of course, sports, athletics is a common theme of yours. These are examples of earlier sculptures, taking the football helmet as kind of a subject to explore everything from differences in black hair to What is it, CTE? The brain trauma? Yeah, I think people brought that to the work. For me, that wasn't my own personal trauma, but I like it because the helmet represents an object that represents many things to different people.
Obviously it has a functional purpose. More so like the sculpture on the left is actually made out of Texas ebony, which is this type of wood that grows not in the Dallas area, but closer to Mexico, like in Brownsville and Laredo, where it's a bush that becomes a small tree, and the interior wood of it, the heartwood, is like this dark brown to black color, and so it has this kind of, this name is Texas ebony. And you know, ebony is this wood that is typically associated with Africa that's black.
Gabon ebony. When I first heard of this wood, I was like, that's my identity. And wood is this Texas ebony, this sort of anthropomorphization of this way of looking at wood and that it could have a cultural significance.
But also, so in that this helmet on the left, it's kind of like a crown of thorns in a way, this sort of, it's black on the outside, but the sapwood, which is part of the same. Another part of the wood has been carved into these thorns that are this sort of internalized like spikes I guess but you know you could look at look at you know this idea of a helmet as this protective thing that's trying to protect whatever is on the inside from something more dangerous but whatever it is seems like it's gotten inside the helmet. Also maybe the pain that comes with conformity and Perhaps taking on the mantle of something that maybe you weren't interested in sports, but somebody in your life wanted you to play them. Yeah, and then like the helmet on the right is from 2021. I think the one on the left is from 2018 or 2019 and on one the right is from 2021. And it's oak, similar to the playground upstairs, it's like an oak helmet shell that has these boar hair bristles which are normally Use on a like a hairbrush and sort of like this idea of refinement and appearance and sort of in this way this helmet is sort of this application of this tool.
I think it takes on a different significance on the playground upstairs but both of these like the thorns which are this sort of difficult space to inhabit as well as the bristles. Reflecting this idea of refining something, brushing it, you know, putting it in order, or like different motifs in my work that have to deal with sort of somewhat cultural assimilation or ways of attaining the American dream that they're both like a process of refinement and I guess upward mobility maybe, as well as like difficult places to inhabit. So. You've used bark to kind of conceal or maybe in thinking of it in terms of armor, but basically to Cover all variety of luxury clothing, accessories, and in some cases, I think, I think in most cases up till the work that's in our show, it's been focused on kind of luxury goods as this way of passing into a different social or economic class.
It is, it has been, but it's the same. Like it's this idea of fitting the part. Fitting the part. So like, like in some situations you have to wear the right shoes, the right purse, the, you know, the right look. There's like, whether you're wearing it to a job or a church or lunch with your friends, like there's expectations of how you're supposed to dress and look to belong to a group.
And that same thing happens in sort of high school football, you know, these sort of expectations of like looking. looking the part and that, you know, so for it's a, can be a conscious decision, you know, you know, selecting is this exterior skin. That's another manifestation of your appearance and how people perceive you in the world.
But I also think about it in terms of in high school, how do you gain kind of social status? There's some ways there's wearing, you know, the cool clothing, uh, but there's also. I went to like a, we had a uniform at my high school.
So the way for you to kind of gain social acceptance or popularity may have been through success in athletics. So you think about the trope of the quarterback and, you know, the big man on campus and how sports offered a way for you to maybe, if you couldn't signify a certain level of status, sports was another way to do it. Or just to be.
not even to be the lead, not to be the boss, but just to be in the crowd, I guess. I think for many people, it's aspirational to belong. So fitting in is not always, it's just getting a foot in the door a lot of the time. This is a view looking up through the interior of the football jersey.
What you see on the inside is a rib cage. So we're starting to get into the skeletons that are included in this show, but also are another aspect of your work that you've introduced a couple of years ago, perhaps. But skeletons are something that some might perceive as maybe morbid or related to death or something. In many ways, a skeleton is this beautiful, like, democratic thing because you're unable to tell a person's gender, oftentimes you can't tell their race.
A skeleton is devoid of all of these signifiers that we associate with these parts of our identity. So you have stripped away kind of all of that to leave us with skeletons, but then... You also play with our preconceived ideas of gender, especially with this work. There are two skeletons in an embrace hanging from what appears to be a closet.
So you might look at this and immediately think skeletons in the closet, so two people with something to hide, perhaps it's a same-sex love affair going on. But then when your eyes take you down to the feet, you notice that the tools that are appended to each pair's legs. I just reveal my own gender biases when I see a shovel and a spade on one skeleton and assume that's a male, because gardeners are often men.
And then the appendages on the skeleton on the right, mop and a broom. Who's often doing the domestic labor in the household? Women, women maids. So you get us to kind of reveal our own gender biases even though skeletons in and of themselves don't really tell us much. Especially wood skeletons.
I mean most people's skeletons are all the same color. I mean we never luckily see our own skeleton in life hopefully. these are a stand-in. I mean essentially this piece is like actually they're just glorified handles of tools like uh but you know you know articulated into like a body this idea of a connection. I mean these could be two lovers, two friends, they could be Adam and Eve or they could be you know enemies or siblings or parents but they're these two polar these are two kind of opposites joined together so that that regardless they still have that connection and that hopefully yeah I've been using these things that many people are familiar with there's the opportunity there's no writer excuse me right or wrong answer to like what exactly is happening hopefully with all of my works that definitely I have some intent and like when I'm making something I mean a lot of these things are kind of difficult to make so I can't just like turn on this table saw and throw a piece of wood at it like I like there is like is some intention behind it but I'm using like familiar forms and concepts and materials that hopefully people have an existing lived experience and understanding of these things, but I'm remixing those things to this sort of kind of surreal uncanny way that hopefully challenges your perception of yourself, but also maybe the subject matter that these sculptures are, you know, a stand-in for.
And you titled this Made in Heaven, which is also a play on words, right? Yes, so like, I mean, it's often the term is like a match made in heaven, and so But it's spelled M-A-D-E, but a little bit I, in the subject, in the sculpture, it's a little bit like a maid, like, you know, in heaven with her perfect match, with their perfect match in terms of thinking of it, you know, as a wordplay. But I also think it's just like a beautiful object.
This is my favorite work in the show. And just because it's not a fully rendered body, it has no arms. You know the point of it wasn't to just recreate two skeletons and a previous piece called American Gothic sort of did that but I'm sort of building on myself and like in each exhibition I want to you know explore different ideas so this like this piece is you know similar like the skeleton has the rest of its body but it's having a chance to relax and I oh this is This is not the original Manet painting, but this is...
You found this online? Oh my god! It's like an AI thing.
It's like a... But because this is... Imagine the roles reversed on this in the original Manet. I'm so sorry everybody.
Yeah, this is like... From an artist, the sculpture is referencing kind of the idea of this... This is a remix of Manet's The Painting of Olympia, which normally shows this reclining like a courtesan. with the black attendant and who was named is Lore and I've renamed my sculpture the name of the attendant this idea of this person who's getting a chance to relax but also you know a lot of the work has different details like the wood this sculpture is made out of is mesquite which is a wood that's native to the to Texas in the southwest it's like a wood that the A lot of people consider weed or invasive even though it's native to here because it can thrive in you know sort of situations with limited water and like kind of maybe take that resource from other plants around it so you know some people don't like that but I like that this mosquito is this sort of social politically sort of a wood that is somewhat kind of has similar to a person and that it's this thing that has a right to be in a place but people don't like it because it they can think it's invasive because it's like you know struggling to exist in a place and i feel like that type of way of describing this tree is similar to the lived experience of many people who might even you know work in these sort of positions of a domestic worker but giving this you know being who doesn't have a you know, how does this person eat?
How does it, how do they walk? All they, their whole life is working. Like there is usefulness and sort of giving them a chance to relax. But it's also unlike this Ikea couch, which I kind of like loves it that I associate as a sort of, for many people, this sort of entry level accessible access to some sort of simple luxury, which is also something that is also repeated in another work in the show, this idea of You know, what things that are accessible and comfortable, but as just like a baseline to having a comfort, to trying to live.
I don't know. I also, from a less political standpoint, think a lot about the great animated film Beauty and the Beast. Yeah.
With the objects that become anthropomorphized and... Like the candelabra. Yes. And how it's actually really... Tragic because it's these human beings who just based on the fact that they happen to work as a maid suddenly become a feather duster for the rest of their lives.
Oh, well, especially after you look at it. Yeah, that's actually really, yeah. That's how they're, you know, there are many people in the background that, you know, enable all of us to exist. But it's also kind of the inertness and the lack of moving out of that station of life.
Yeah, like it's funny because this show overall is like all about aspiration or not I don't know like that sort of but it's because that because I guess a lot of the American dream is this that Aspiration that hopefully, you know, even thinking of the election that things will get better Yeah, like like I guess as most people would like what America to be that thing not that to waddle and it getting worse but either You know, even for someone who's worked their whole life, maybe at some point there's a chance to relax. So there's, I guess that's aspirational. I mean, many people come here and go through a lot, live a difficult life, maybe to provide for others.
You know, like when I first showed the American Gothic piece. This is American Gothic? Yes, which is sort of titled after the Grant Wood painting of a farmer, and I guess is... spouse, or actually it was his niece, I don't know if it's that important, but, or it was also a Gordon Parks photo, but this idea of these people who, you know, constantly working, but someone came up to me and said, oh, this is like a portrait of my grandmother who was always working so that we could have a better life, but they never were able to rest, you know, because they had X amount of jobs, to keep food on the table and provide shelter. And so this piece is made out of oak, but it's a similar sculpture.
They just have kind of have they have hand. I mean, they had they had all the limbs. But also, I mean, in making these all these sculptures are also like kind of confident in their use of wood joinery and different techniques.
So that like it was about having an idea, but also. You know, these are all real handmade things. It's not like using a computer or like AI. Like these are things you can see and walk around, not hopefully not touch, before they're cut, like the sense of preserving them. But like, they're, it's important to be able to actually create this idea so that it is visceral and that I think as a sculptor.
You know, my work is better experienced in person, like it's not as great on a phone or on a screen. It's much being able to walk around it and using your eyes and your whole lived experience comes into play when you sort of interact with these things. And yeah, I've gotten to that tangent, but in general, I think that my work is best experienced in person. Yeah, this was a piece also made earlier this year.
Where the skeletons are made out of different types of wood and it's just the upper body and a little bit my use of these wooden like sort of hanger like skeletons is that thinking about a skeleton as sort of a hanger for the hanger that's just how hangers hold up clothes they also are what in the sense of a body that's what is holding you all together. I mean your flesh, your organs. Your existence and that we're, you know, we all have these sort of, we're all kind of different, but we have this similar thing that's all holding us together that makes us, but we manifest it differently.
This is like an older work from 2019. One of the first like skeleton pieces where There were like these arms that are kind of like relics that you might find in a crypt of a church but with doing like different they're flocked and like velvet-like clothing. One is green, blue and red. One is giving the finger. In terms of the scale of these skeletons I mean especially with American Gothic they seem over life-size is that right?
Just the limbs more than anything are longer. Because of their tools that are... Just to accentuate that quality.
The ones in this show that we've made the limbs slightly smaller. So it's less, it's not monumental but it's... Is there a formula for that? How do you determine what scale to make these skeletons?
Is somebody a model? Are you ever the model for the dimensions? No, well we kind of now at this point we've made a set size for the torso and the pelvis.
And also this is, like I'm not a doctor, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a historian. Like I'm an artist so like it's not about it being perfect. I mean I'm like communicating the idea and like just like I'm not writing about my work.
If I could write about my work it would really well, why did I even need to make it? And so like, so I think as an artist, and like, you know, I'm about communicating an idea and like remixing my lived experience, and my idea of history in the world and science to make these sculptures that, you know, that and also coming from being an architect, it's important that at first I was a little more strict about like rules and like, this has to be perfect, this sternum really looks like this, or the collarbone is supposed to look like this. And, you know, now I'm more comfortable. with this is just about the essence and it's the idea this is obviously not even it's not real it's I mean it's not a bone it's made out of wood and so it's it's sort of I've as I could grow as artists I'm giving myself more leeway that you know I'm not trying to resolve like picking and choosing like it's like with food how much salt do you need for it to taste just right it's kind of one it's objective but some it's about the essence of it all and that it's sometimes um you know i could work on something for another two days or two hours or two months or two years but it might not change that much it might already have enough seasoning to like to really already communicate that taste and so um in terms of the skill of the limbs there's no formula it's just what feels right so and sort of like You know every time I make a sculpture especially a lot of times I get new ideas as I'm making something but because a lot of these works are kind of challenging to make or using scarce materials I don't kind of switch horses midstream or how I'm saying is like I'll save that idea for the next time I might be exploring something to try out this new variation of something. or change in scale or size or color or using a different wood.
So I kind of make a mental note to come back to, maybe we should make the bones shorter. So that's what happened for this show. Do you keep a library of materials? Like a physical library or is it all kind of...
It's not, it's probably the product of like... Having leftovers, but that's not the intention. I like to have just like a stockpile of things because that takes up space, it costs money. It's sort of, but I...
Also, I think about the anecdote I heard where in a very early studio visit at your Cornell studio, or Columbia studio, that you had just like completely filled the small studio space with Christmas trees and you were like on the verge of getting kicked out because it was a fire hazard. Well that had actually already happened with that but it's sort of like well that in that case I was getting them for something I was working on at the time but it's sort of it's in general like some of the materials you can't just go and buy at Home Depot like you know like you have to having to travel to Brownsville and find some people local people to help you collect trees or you know collecting Christmas trees out on the on the street or even even getting ebony is actually kind of not. that simple like in terms of being able to just go out and buy some so there's definitely like a planning and management that goes into like getting some sometimes you have to get a certain amount of the wood so it's like well I'll have some leftovers that I can a lot of my pieces are you know it's not intended to be sustainable to save the world but maybe it's like often cost-effective to like Use like a sort of nose-to-tail approach of using a tree or the wood because it, you know, it took, was so hard to get it that there will be leftovers or other parts that are less desirable.
But I can find a use for those parts so that it's... They might stick around on the shelf for a little piece of time, but it creates a library and having to store it, but it wasn't necessarily the intention. I've also learned it's better to have extra to get by maybe a little too much than to run out, especially if it's something that takes six months to get. So it's better to... to plan for the worst a little bit sometimes.
I'm going to shift to maybe something that's a little bit easier to get. Hair, yeah. Correct, hair. Well, synthetic hair. Synthetic.
This is titled Rapunzel, which of course everybody thinks about the fairy tale of the maiden who's been locked away in the tower, and the only way to escape is for her to let down her hair. for a night to climb up and I assume how do they both get out I'm not sure the story just kind of ends. Halfly Ever After. Halfly Ever After, which is the title for another work in the show. But in this case this golden flaxen hair is tumbling out of a basketball goal from the rim so you're here kind of clashing ideas or colliding ideas of Childhood fairy tales, athletics, kind of aspirations, what are some kind of markers of achievement?
Well, yeah, I mean, for me, that fairy tale... The fairy tale of getting out of a certain station in life because you were successful in sports? Oh, well, I just see, like, at the base level, like, that Rapunzel is this fairy tale of, like... This pursuit of overcoming a challenging task to get the trophy or in this case the trophy wife or something and that sort of basketball being this sort of in this case a metaphor for that sort of it like attainment of this sort of trophy partner or success and but it's kind of a placeholder this this could be relative to any career path whether it's being a an athlete or a doctor or business person or a curator or museum director this idea of you know the accoutrements that come with success and after like a struggle in our pursuit of something and that it's just sort of like a metaphor that for many stages and like a person's life or professional career path. And you've used this kind of these materials this this idea in different iterations but the kind of variant is always the hair.
Yes, like there's been different colors of hair, different textures of hair, as well as different lengths of the hair. This, like the regulation, one thing that comes into play in these, like at least why is it displayed this way, it's like the regulation NBA basketball rim height is 10 feet from the floor. So I tend to show these works at that height. And then the hair is just, I think this hair is like 28 feet long or 30 feet long. So it's just, the hair is in overabundance.
I mean, you know, technically we could show this in 30 feet. If the ceilings were higher, maybe we would show it at 30 feet from the floor. So it could really, you know, at some point I would love to make one that's like 10 feet, 10 stories tall on a pole or on the outside of a building and or outside.
But just sort of this idea of this. This challenge or this like this like thing that is this obstacle towards obtaining success and this is just a kind of ongoing body of work where essentially they are making them a longer each time. Also I mean in making these they're made out of this sort of synthetic plastic hair that's used for different types of braiding styles and you know I made the first one of these in 2011. I never had like long braidable hair.
I didn't grow up braiding my hair. And so like I had to watch YouTube videos and got some dolls to practice how to... This is so this is like 12 years ago, so I was like 28 and like teaching myself how to braid hair.
But also but that was just the basic of doing a three strand braid, but then creating a system where it's actually A little more complicated than just writing like a human's, a regular person's hearing that. It's an intersecting pattern. I don't know if there's a detail shot.
It's like a diamond pattern of hair that intersects but also being able to add hair into it seamlessly so that you can because the hair that goes into this is only four feet long so there's also a system of adding the hair into it so that to the viewer you have no idea how it's made and so with all these sculptures there's like some sort of system that makes it possible because often it's like the same like repetitive step. or operation or like a system of rules but it's added to this sort of material but it's sort of like some sort of really carefully orchestrated system that's organizing how it's made. I'm wondering if the um is this a three-strand braid? Well this is the this is the detail of the yeah I mean it's it's hard to see here because it's this is the part where it's um I mean just with catenary action eventually it just becomes a rope. So I'm curious if the teaching yourself how to braid was any help when it came to weaving a basket?
The basket weaving happened much later and this sort of more basic form of basket came more. Intuitively, I actually, this, the basket in the show isn't the most complex one. It's just made out of a thick material, but I have, after making earlier baskets, I have made more complex ones where I've had to teach myself from old out-of-print books or some YouTube videos how to weave something because a lot of these are, I think, a braid, hair braiding probably would never will get played, get replaced by it.
A machine, but many other like sort of handicrafts like basket weaving is sort of like a skill that is disappearing. Yeah. Even though it like basket weaving happens all over the world and that no culture owns it because humans, some of the oldest like human artifacts are baskets.
I think too about braiding, hairstyling, especially with braiding. or longer hair and weaving, basket weaving is, those are often coded as feminine in terms of the... Some cultures, well it's definitely in the west. But in the west for sure, and especially basket weaving as a craft technique, it's this idea that you're colliding this feminine coded technique with the masculine coded. you know basketball rim so you're offering this object that can kind of be both what i'm also curious about is um the weaving of this this weave-in braid color blonde and they're very similar in colors was that a happy accident you know or were you just interested in kind of presenting two basketball goals that have that's more of a coincidence because Partially the last Rapunzel I made was black.
You wanted to do a blonde one. Well, I just alternated through different hair colors. Did it have to do with Dallas? Dallas blonde. No, I mean, I'm sure it would have, again, with a lot of these ideas, people have a relationship to certain things, so definitely it would have a resonance here.
But a little bit, the last one I made was black, and so I normally... I don't want to remake the same thing and that I'm like sort of challenging myself to like even if it's just changing the color or something that it can expand on an idea. And yeah because also like I don't tend to make prototypes with my work and that each sculpture is kind of a prototype for the next thing that's coming after it so that it's kind of the test out.
Some ideas of like some other things I'm thinking of making that are another exploration of this that like oh did I like that type of that color blonde or because I'm because I'm already because I'm at this like I'm already planning the next version of that for another. Okay. That is taking input from how we made this one and how it came out.
You titled this basketball goal Short and Stout which is a reference to the nursery rhyme. I'm sure many of us could demonstrate up here if you'd, you know, we all have that in our heads. Short and stout also kind of referring to body types and It's not common to find a short and stout basketball player.
And it's hung considerably lower, so you have these two opposing basketball hoops. One at regulation height, one the height which might suggest a children's hoop. I'm curious, what else can you tell us about this idea of short and stout? Is it about body types? Is it about children's nursery rhymes?
I think I started off having one idea of making this, and it had to evolve from what the finished result is. So I would say a lot of the works in my practice in general, because obviously I start off with one intent in how I'm making a piece, but sometimes what I was hoping for doesn't always... express itself so it comes because it due direction and so the works are the the titles change or even sometimes if the work comes back to the studio I retool them so like this piece is sort of one of those that was I think it still represents this idea of short and stout and this and the sense of a basketball that's kind of the opposite of like the perception of a tall lean athletic basketball player so And this piece also kind of gets to the crux of like how I kind of started making these basketball works.
Well, actually I was making the Rapunzel works a lot, like ten years or eight years before I started making these like woven basketball pieces where literally the basketball pieces somewhat grew out of this idea of like thinking like over like literally thinking about where this basketball come from or the name and exploring that as an idea. also did bring in these ideas of like this sort of feminine like sort of craft um with this sort of idea of this masculine sport and the juxtaposition between the two so and then yeah this these are works that now like i started off with like a like a specific thing i was interested in making them but i'm now kind of like freeing myself from always that needing to have an exact thesis for each word and that like that i can like Give myself the freedom as an artist to just start to make things that are like like moving away from needing to have a key to explain and so like I think this show has a few pieces that are more just kind of now at this point as my practice as I'm showing work longer that there's less of a guidebook to describe them I'd say. So food has always been a part of your work from the beginning. You were doing culinary and what did you call them culinary performances? Culinary installations.
Culinary installations but these this series of skillets and melting pots has been ongoing for some time. This is, correct me if I'm wrong, the first instance of showing kind of this variety of finishes in one work. There was one other piece that is similar that is showing only, but these are all different metal finishes, where the one on the left is polished aluminum.
The second one is cast iron that's just seasoned with oil. And then the third one from the left is polished bronze. And then the last one is bronze that's been copper plated and polished.
But yeah, this is like the piece is called to get together and this idea of this like grouping or cluster of different like cooking implements that all these faces these masks cast into them. You know, creating a meal is made up of different dishes and sort of we're even thinking of a potluck but sort of you know a way of bringing people together. So this series really began where you were taking Traditional African masks, in some cases even casting your own features into cast iron skillets as this way of collapsing ideas of, you know, who were the first cooks in America. Well it's not just about food. I would say just like the Rapunzel pieces that use basketball as like a subtext, it's more of like a lens and a metaphor for like thinking of a larger idea and it's more about thinking about America as a melting pot.
stew of diverse cultures and people. Like that, you know, this potato or carrot, a piece of beef or celery could represent someone from different cultural or ethnic backgrounds. But this sort of pot that is this implement that sort of holds it all together, you know, to create America, that is sort of this sort of is built on these sort of African cultural origins. And that was sort of the initial.
thinking about the creation of America was dependent on sort of the sort of African descendants. Whether you're thinking about just in culture, literally in food, or sort of the building of the country for an infrastructure, whether architecturally, through the industrially, or through agriculture, sort of the African folks that sort of enabled the pot that to create the stew that you know, America would become or is. And so that was sort of the initial idea behind making this body of work.
And now it's just it's expanded from that initial idea. Like at first they were all just cast iron. And now that piece has aluminum and bronze components, which are completely unfunctional, not necessarily in a culinary tradition.
But it's sort of now it's just it's moving away from being like there's as much a literal translation of those ideas but more exploring like you know now just a difference in color and material and background that you know these works could be relatives or have things in common but they're also different and you know that I think that's how most you know artistic practice expand from like initial idea to start exploring the material possibilities now so. Art more now. This is an earlier installation image from your show at Princeton in 2020, where you see just the cast iron, but this you also used objects from the museum collection cast into those? Yeah, we use scans from the Princeton's art collection of not just African mass, but paired with different Objects from the collection, so like from like an Egyptian sarcophagus to like a Gagarin sculpture, to different things that we were sort of put on one side of the pot and on the other side was the African mass, so there was like a transformation between the two sides that we kind of planned. We were able to create via a 3D model.
And I think this is kind of a direction that you're headed toward which is combining musical instruments with cooking implements. So this is an untitled work I think our registrar came up with the title you'd like to use Sossophone? Is that?
Yeah, because it's like a sousaphone bell which most people probably don't know what is. A sousaphone is like a tuba that is more for like maybe marching because it wraps around the body. But for the purposes of making this, these pot like instruments, hybrids, this is the bell from one of them attached to a sauce, a copper saucepan, that they've been like kind of welded together and then replated completely in copper.
And this was, this piece, this form first appeared in a larger piece that was made up of multiple like instruments that had been joined to pots and pans. Similar to this, like connected to, also shown with these melting pot pieces, but in this actually version of it, the instruments are all functional. They actually can be played and you know music comes out it sounds different because of the, you know, the alterations that you made.
Yeah, the metal, you know, reverberations are different, but also you know in this case it's thinking themselves a musical instrument like where The mouth is the source of the wind versus, you know, and the piece in the show, it's this idea of if the actual act of cooking would create music. So the recording that you hear is me cooking bacon. Like it starts off maybe slower. There's like some racket. It's me, like turning the fire on, putting the bacon in, and then it starts to sizzle.
Then at the end, I eat the bacon. And of course, you wouldn't cook bacon in a saucepan, but... It's more about the idea of this and also like you know creating this object that I think if you think of those sort of old record players that also had that type of battle material yeah just sort of it's more of an idea even if it's in practice. or not logical. I think that's what art is.
It sort of challenges the way you think about, you know, the elements that make up your lived experience. Jumping into the large topic of religion, this church that's, well, it's a children's playhouse in the design of a church. So it's the scale of a play church. Play church.
You thought about calling it, I think, maybe Sunday School at one point, or the Children's Church. Inside the church is a pew and a lectern for all those tiny aspiring ministers, titled Happily Ever After. So this idea of taking the last three words that end most...
children's fairy tales. This kind of explainer that everything will be good from this point on, happily ever after. But also the, you know, putting this in and taking a children's house and transforming it into a church. So thinking about the ways religious indoctrination happens, often through religious texts that are told to children. and maybe watered down versions as a way to kind of instill morals and virtues, put them on the good path.
But then fairy tales in a lot of ways are very similar in that they're also using, you know, whimsy and make-believe to teach children lessons, you know, don't lie to your parents, don't trespass, don't steal women's cookies. All sorts of... Don't steal porridge.
Yeah, don't steal porridge, exactly. So, and it's all... Those are derived from fables, so it's about kind of the indoctrination of youth and how...
And some people might believe that the religious texts are actually just fairy tales, right? Well, I'm not saying that, but... Well, I think that it's up to the viewer, but I'm...
I am presenting this sort of fantasy or like a materialization of this idea of, you know, it's a form of a church redone by Fisher-Price almost, in that, you know, theoretically it is functional. We're not allowing users in the exhibition, but every element was considered like... for a child using like what would a pew, besides for a child what would like I think my studio manager who has a two-year-old would say this is like a two to four-year-old age range for this, but you know we did consider what was the right height for the like the ideal user experience whether you're like leading a talk or whether you're the person leading the discussion or the recipient you know kind of. I was trying to encapsulate an idea, but for me I think it's important as an artist, just as in the sculpture, it's like a two-way street. I think there's multiple viewpoints of this piece that can be polar opposite.
And so I think a lot of my works have that element, and so I don't want to say that it is this or that, but that it may be, it's not me not picking aside, it's more of that many things, especially in America, do have two opposing perspectives that people that can simultaneously exist that are both critical and celebratory at the same time. And I think that you've incorporated religious objects or things that suggest a religious setting in several of your installations in the past. This is an installation of church pews with the red brushes attached to the Where you would sit, so again this kind of discomfort and trying to inhabit something.
Or this soapbox type object that combines a skeleton with a box with a live mic that allowed anyone to kind of step up and give a speech, give a... I don't know. Evangelize? Yeah, I mean a platform.
A platform. You know, whether, there's no age, you're never too young to start. Speaking of too young, the work titled Pecanocchio upstairs is this gorgeous rendering of a Pinocchio doll referencing that fairy tale again, but is wearing a very special outfit. This portrait that was taken in 1984, so you were probably about a year old. depending on when, and wearing this corduroy jumper, bowtie, then white shoes, and seated, you know, kneeling behind this little wooden footstool.
You know, you were really well ahead of the curve in terms of your reading comprehension. Full library, you know, and this is the third in a series of these Pinocchio dolls that you've made. I'm curious, is this, to me, I see it as a stand-in for you in the exhibition. I'm wondering, because this show is so, it's in your hometown, it is homecoming, it is replete with nostalgia, memories of your own that can then be pretty universal to certain generations. When you saw this photograph were you like I need to realize this Pinocchio doll or what came first?
Oh needing to dress the Pinocchio, like how would this one be dressed? Okay so it really became down to just trying to figure out how to dress him. Yeah because I've made two before this one and I had taken this photo, I found that photo last year but I hadn't.
I haven't thought about using it to dress the Pecanocchio yet because I don't have kids yet. And so I, in dressing these, at first I was just trying to make them look like dress like Pinocchio. Because like most people's idea of how Pinocchio should be dressed is based off of the Disney cartoon.
Which is like an invented outfit based off of like a Tyroleanian kind of lederhosen, which is the one on the right. And that was the first one I made, which was called Ebonocchio, which is essentially Pinocchio, more of the big picture, because I wouldn't say that the piece is intended to be completely autobiographical, but more so that Pinocchio as an idea is an Italian word, which is like combining Pinot and occhio, which is like Pinot is pine, occhio in Italian is eye, like an eyeball. You know, we know that as this wooden little boy, a puppet, but if you change therefore his type of wood, you change his appearance, his color, I mean his race.
So like the first two, the one on the right is called, is using Gabon ebony from Africa, which is this wood that is almost black, so he becomes Ebonokio, but also his appearance changes because he's no longer made of pine. Also the one on the left, Then I started to play with his costume. He's called Noccecchio, which is walnut, and nocce in Italian. So again, his appearance changes, his color changes, because and his name changes because he's made out of a different wood. But in this case, I dressed him in like a classic sort of sailor outfit, which is kind of like another trope or style of...
child photography since like the invention of photography in the turn of the century or the early 1900s. And then so when it came time to pick an outfit because I wanted to I did want to make one of these Pinocchio figures for this exhibition where you know for me growing up in Texas I always knew that a pecan tree is the state tree of Texas just like the blue bonnet is a state flower. The mockingbird is a state bird. At least from my perspective, those were always like things that were important that we were taught when we were little up until a certain age.
And so I didn't like pecans as a child. I now love them, but I love pecan pie. But I wanted to use, I wanted to make, you know, this one of these figures that was relevant to showing it here in Texas. And pecan is also like a wood that is not grown for its lumber, it's grown for its nuts. And so the wood has a lot of imperfections in it, whether it's bug holes or knots or occlusions or different things.
So he almost looks like he has chicken pox or a lot of things. And also this figure has the longest nose we've made of one yet. And a little bit me seeing how long can we make the nose. This is the longest nose we can make on my lathe.
So I actually am looking for a way to make one that's a lot longer. Because Pinocchio is all about, a big part of this wooden boy is that In that story of him, you know, he lies and his nose grows. So I think he looks cute with a short nose.
And there was a debate about like if we should make one with a little nose. We probably will at some point. But it took away some of the, I hate to say immediacy of the piece. If it was just, if the nose wasn't long, it helps communicate. You know, like.
People know the story of Pinocchio but they only know him being pine. Right, and they know him from the lederhosen or they know him from his particular costuming. But and so and for me and my use of wood I'm actually more interested in you know changing the narrative of like creating a new narrative for other people who aren't pine. Well and I also thought it was kind of humorous that you know this could be a stand-in for you in the exhibition and You maxed out your lathe making the nose. So what does that say about you in terms of your trustworthiness?
Well, I mean, I'm typically too honest. Your mom's in the room, so. No, I have trouble not revealing too much information.
But yeah, I am. So it's. And you also put him in this crib, which in some. Some people might read the crib as a play area.
If you're a parent, you're like, oh, finally I get some relief and I can do stuff in the kitchen because I can put my child in a playpen and let them rest it out. It could be in timeout for doing something bad. Yeah. It could be a little prison. Also, the crib is a little bit strangely scaled.
Is it? Yes. Oh, what's that? Well, I will say I do know like wooden cribs, there's like a lot of litigation that has happened around cribs in America, so like you can't buy.
like the sort of cribs I grew up in are not legal. Like it's a lot of, like there's a lot of rules on about like. Anne McLean, Well, because safety standards.
John Fennel, Because a lot of children have died in cribs because of their design of it. But for me, I was trying to, you know, I was interested in, you know, also thinking about this. Because the other two that I've made have been on pedestals and shown in like a more abstract gallery environment.
I did want to use the exhibition to have like. Some overall narrative about the show and then he's within the home part of the show and there's no bed like I mean there's like a couch there's right there's a kitchen table there's a stove there's a closet and there are these different things that represent a house but I it was important to be able to bring in a bed right like a bedroom and a home like what is the house of no place to sleep yeah so a little bit and choosing to make a crib versus like the little stool I'm on in the photo was a way to have a stand-in for some some sort of bed. I mean he's wearing his shoes in it too but it was I was thinking not just about the piece as it will live on which I think the crib which is this container this little prison you know I guess parents don't think of cribs as a prison they're not.
Maybe a baby does though. But it's all about perspective. Versus you're in or you're out.
It created like a container and a pedestal but also like and it's based off of previous cribs I've made too. It's like a lot of the like he's the same size of the previous Nokios we've made just like the skeletons are all the same rib cage that we've been making that we're creating. Someone asked at my previous show how did you all make all of these seemingly Excuse me, different works, but we're kind of just building on what we've done.
We're not like making a reinventing myself or making a new wheel for every sculpture. That like we figure out how to make it and you know improve where we can, but also you know we can make the nose longer in this one, we can do a different pose in this one, because we've gone through all the trouble of making the sculptures that they can articulate. that we can, you know, now that we've done like part of it being an architect, maybe now that we've figured it out, I can now not just focus on the technicalities of it, but I can like, what does it mean if it's made out of a different color wood or different pose, different outfit. Explore this idea further through different materials. Yeah.
Yeah. And so, it also adds to the world building and as you say, the narrative. So, you know, you've already established you can make the figure. So now how do you build out this narrative around the figure.
So you create a crib for this figure to inhabit. Yeah, and for me the big most important thing about this body of work is what it means to make it in a different wood. Because that's, as most people don't know, that Pinocchio is made out of pine and that's why he's white, like as how that's perceived. But there are many woods in the world and that all have different properties. And the more of these that I make, create different opportunities for people to see themselves in this narrative that they didn't see themselves being a part of.
So that's actually the most important thing about that body of work. I think we're getting close to time, but I want to get through some of the images, particularly of Kidsville. But the Adirondack chair is this kind of example of Americana. It signifies a certain economic class, the ability to have time for leisure, to have a piece of furniture that's fabricated from wood and nicely finished out, versus some of the kind of lawn furniture that maybe I grew up with, which was either plastic or wrought iron. And here you titled it Heaven, and you have it looking out on the garden.
Yeah, because initially, like in terms of the title change, I thought I was calling it Reunion. This idea of, for me, I don't think of like young people using Adirondack chairs. I think of it sort of in this sort of life cycle of rest and relaxation and retirement, second home, you know, being able to leave work. family and sort of just be that opportunity to relax and sort of reset but also this idea of getting able to settle down or even entitling it heaven i don't know if the pictures you can really see but the i've given it this effect of the paint is worn out and the sort of the imprint of a person um that uh like there's a ghost and so whether it's sort of this sort of someone is already like this sort of cyclical like return to the earth.
Or even a lot of times why I started using branches in my work was actually about this type of camouflage about blending in to a natural environment and then anything that has these branches on it where you actually can't, you know, we remove the leaves or the needles. For most people they don't know what type of tree this is. So it has, just like a skeleton, it has no race, it has no gender, has no age, has no religion, it could be anyone.
And that it represents, you know, this dream maybe of what this Adirondack chair represents in the scheme of the American dream of having like a place to relax or a second home or, yeah, to rest or vacation. Owning property and land that could be anyone. But also, I guess, the more of these you combine together, they kind of, they create their own new forest or their own.
Bush that keeps also keeps people out like for some people they might see it as a detour because how do you sit in this how do you inhabit it and a lot of this sort of this one of the things I talk about my work is the you know this difficult space to inhabit but you know a little bit America is this way of finding ways to inhabit things that might seem tricky or difficult to other people and like finding a way to like excel isn't the best word but how to make it ergonomic for your own lived experience. This is, I've just been showing slides of another Adirondack chair that you covered in boar hair bristles, which is the same material that you covered the playground equipment in. And that's made out of the Texas ebony too, but the not as dark parts, the...
Just as a reference that most people never see this wood, but... And that piece was called The Preacher's Wife. Yeah. So, Kiddsville, Kiddsville is this, you know, it's not there anymore.
It is in some different iteration. It was recently taken down. But it was a playground that was built in 1989, so firmly within your childhood, in this suburb of Dallas called Duncanville. And it was entirely imagined, designed, funded, and constructed by volunteer residents of the city.
And using this type of model that this architect and artist named Robert Leathers really championed around the 1970s. And so... It's the style of playground architecture that has, you know, turrets, medieval style architecture, lots of tunnels and places for children to hide, lots of opportunities to get slivers. The key element of this playground style was the use of wood. And I think that was also kind of a way for anybody to come together to build it because wood is a material that you can...
Most people can wield a hammer and a nail. It has an inherent DIY aspect. That's why I like a lot of my interests.
Some people say it's a sort of vernacular American forms of woodworking manifested in a school desk or Adirondack chair or a playhouse or a church or a kid's playground. So that's why this was attractive as a motif or even a director's chair. But why I was attracted to the representation of this idea, this sense of play and I guess like, you know, for children they don't see in the same maybe color, more color, maybe more colorblind than the way an adult sees that. Typically children approach something without the same pretenses an adult would, but sort of to take something that the target audience is maybe more open-minded of how it's supposed to be used, but Even subverting that with bristles or with thorns to make it like a space that's harder to inhabit. And you know, I found another, that is another opportunity of like this sort of type of, you know, most of my sculptures are wood or some way they have a dialogue with wood, even this the melting pots.
The casts are made from wooden African masks that have their own layered histories into them. So they're not There is some through line that I guess with wood through all my work and that I get one of my attractions to using wood is it's this thing that many people probably take for granted that you know what a tree is and that the you know it's all around us the floor this piece is made essentially is made out of brooms like is what these what this sort of form would normally be used for is like a push broom and But as an artist if I'm able to change your understanding of not just wood and what a tree can be but also these forms that I'm manipulating and that there's this opportunity maybe even to change even a bigger picture ideas of the how you think about the concepts a lot of these works are embodying and how they relate to you in ways that just would go beyond the immediate visceral reaction to these like materials and and forms. I think ultimately that's why I'm using wood and why I'm interested in to sort of pushing the limits of what it can do because typically in America wood is always like wooded like you know this tree all these shapes are because the tree was growing towards the light of the Sun and I've put it back together but The tendency of people, especially in the US, is to just cut a tree into these linear forms that only have, you know, no curves. Like every piece of wood in here is like, has a sharp angle. And that's how we typically think of wood and the environment that surrounds us, but it's totally removed from the organic qualities that created it.
And so a little bit, I would say that's... That's definitely underpinning my idea of my sort of approach to try to there's any uncanny reaction to what a tree can be and like and then making using that as a jumping off point to reinterpret like our lived experience. There's two tables in our show they both feature pencils either the eraser end out which is the kitchen table or the graphite end out, which is the cafeteria table. I just love this video because it gives everybody an opportunity to see that this is a functional cafeteria table that you use that actually... Hold it up.
But you know the first table that I saw of yours was the table you made for Princeton. Here it is installed in the gallery and so that was an exhibition in a house, so a domestic space, so you didn't really have to work too hard to build out the world or the narrative of an interior domestic sphere in the way that you needed to with the Nashers building. But so this idea of taking a kitchen table or even a cafeteria table, these two places that are locations of community communion, sharing a meal, doing your homework, being traumatized in high school.
There are these two sites that are really meaningful to especially your, you know. upbringing your childhood well not just me no but i'm saying the universal you like this is like i think all of us probably have memories of sitting around your kitchen table all of us have memories of trying to find it or or hopefully this piece is about some people don't have those memories or the or trying to find a seat at the cafeteria table for example but this idea of taking a kitchen table which is round so there's no hierarchy there's no head of a table It implies equal access to it, but then you're subverting that and kind of pointing out that, yeah, it's not a given that everybody does have this access to this kind of warm and cozy kitchen table idea. The idea of a kitchen table, what does it represent to most people?
The idea of a family. This kitchen table has four chairs. So what do we think of when we think of a kitchen table with four chairs?
We think of a nuclear family, perhaps. And historically, traditionally, people think of, in terms of the American dream, the nuclear family has always been defined as a heterosexual couple with their two children. But that idea is becoming increasingly in flux.
And so this... Even, like, my apartment doesn't really have the space for a table. Like I mean many many apartments now at least in New York aren't because the ways people live have changed also It's part of it that there's no space for it people eat out they order and like they don't cook They eat while watching Netflix so that there's also this change in the way that people have lived like, you know, I mean it what it's related to iPhones and like You know like kitchens will become obsolete at home that I I like also showing this form in an art museum and that while this isn't a history museum but these uh this sort of wooden apparatus will become obsolete even you know even if there are no trees but like and like you know like most of these playgrounds are replaced with plastic and metal ones that these are kind of like archaic forms that were common when i grew up in the 80s and 90s but you know also they're kind of markers of like a time and And, you know, even like when I was making some of the classroom related things during COVID, some people thought, you know, people would never have classrooms in the same way.
Like because of like remote learning and Zoom and sort of, you know, all these reasons why people get together less or come together less because of, you know, it's kind of a luxury to be able to have a meal around the kitchen table with a family, like for whatever reason. versus eating takeout, eating on the run, eating separately, eating alone. It's not like a given or something that everyone has access to. I think we went really far over time. Apologies.
And you all stayed. You all stayed. Thank you.
Your prize is now we get to ask questions. I'm just kidding. I guess we could take a couple questions.
Yes, Beckett. Thank you so much for this discussion. So my question would be, you were talking about a lot of the selection of the woods that you use in your works. And my question is, for some work, like, is there a thought process behind the color and the grain of the wood?
Or is it just choosing a specific, like, what is the selection process behind choosing the wood and where you're finding it? Well, the wood typically is not, I think in every piece the wood is always like a A conscious decision even in, I mean I tend to use like the least wood from Home Depot because that you know it's typically just pine or fir 2x4s that are kind of like a chicken strip like I mean or yeah like I'd like a few I sometimes describe my wood is like because I'm like going through lens to acquire the wood or the branches to drill on it it's almost like a drumstick with it has a foot attached. Whereas like a 2x4 is sort of like a chicken strip that is like completely devoid of what a chicken looks like. You know, there's no feathers, there's no skin.
At least it's still intact. The muscle versus like a chicken McNugget is like a piece of plywood that is like scraps of a tree glued back together. That's like, you know it's chicken because I guess you're told that you didn't see it made and there's no visible reference to that tree. Versus by using woods that have the foot still attached or the feathers on it a little bit, like that you're seeing where it comes from and that can create a perhaps like even seeing the wood that has different colors is coming from a different environment that created that why the ebony is black on the inside.
So it's definitely a conscious decision to use ebony in a piece. Partially because it's just, if it's visible it's wood, the color is going to speak for itself that it's creating a different reading of the artwork. But also a lot of times wood like ebony is much more difficult to use because it's very dense and oily so we have to do different techniques to put it together.
And so, like in this show, there are certain, not all the pieces, but some of the works are using wood that's indigenous to Texas. So like the piece on the couch, the lore, is made from mesquite, which is the wood I was explaining is that many people consider invasive and like a weed. And I'm, while you like seeing the piece, I don't think knowing it's mesquite, you don't need to know it's mesquite to appreciate the artwork, but conceptually that was a conscious decision to use that wood because it, because if you, maybe if you do know wood.
You'll know mesquite is typically cut down for weed or used for barbecue as a result of people like, very rarely do you find things made out of live oak. Because people don't, especially in Texas, live oak is this tree that takes a long time to grow. It's stately, it means it's patience, it's time, it's history, all these things it embodies.
And that sort of slow time it takes to get this big tree versus mesquite can grow really fast. under difficult conditions and can thrive, but often it's thought of as being invasive in a weed and so I kind of like this idea of celebrating something that's not normally celebrated, but you don't have to know that to appreciate this piece. I'm just telling you that's why I chose to use this wood, but ultimately I think that you could hopefully... I appreciate this piece without using, reading the wall label, what it's made out of.
Any other questions? So for questions, so how can you make the ideas to make the wooden sculptures? So how can you inspire the... other artists including like the Pinocchio and the skeleton and the playground. How can you get in...
So what are your... How can you get to make your ideas or inspire based on the artists? How can you make... How can you build in your ideas and to get from inspirations? Um...
Like what's inspiring me? Like how do you get from inspiration to object? Yes. Oh, well, there's definitely some figuring out.
Like, I don't, like, unfortunately, none of these things are, like, can I just, like, walk in? I will actually, well, some of them, like, well, I've been making, I've been, because I didn't just start making these things overnight. I have a practice of it.
I've been building on making these pieces so that I have an infrastructure set up and a knowledge of how are we going to make this. So, yeah. However, this piece, you know, the first one of these skeletons with this sort of rib cage, we made 20, like three, two or three years ago.
It's made through a process called bent lamination, which is how we're able to make the ribs. So round and that was like a new type of woodworking that was like learning French because it's like a process that's very different than just cutting wood on a table saw or chop saw or carving it. It's cutting the wood into these very thin strips where it's very fragile but flexible and I'm making like a lasagna of them like like layered together gluing them together but also making molds for each piece like You know, each one of these skeletons uses about 16 molds to bend the ribs to a certain shape and profile. And so there was a trial and error. Like, I'm not showing that...
I mean, there's a lot of mess that created all these pieces, a lot of sawdust, a lot of waste. But, so there's an understanding of the limits of the properties of the materials, and then finding a way... to sort of exploit the material properties of the wood. So how thin can we cut it? How to get to bend a rib?
Like wood isn't, as we know it in America, doesn't really work well thin and round. And in an organic, it's straight, it's thick boards, it's, you know, it's working with just gravity applied on the top of it. So there was a lot of like, there was some R&D you could say in figuring this out.
And also this is like eight different woods from across the world. So. In this piece, you know, kind of your previous question, it's the same object made out of different woods that have different colors and in this case it does give a sense of difference and diversity by just simply using woods that are different colors with their different properties will showcase the you know different a different idea than if they were all the same color. There would be a different reading.
But, yeah, also in terms of how I figure out how I'm going to make things, I often am making something and I get a new idea while I'm making it, but I don't switch, I don't like, it took so long to get here, I'm not just like going to take that exit. I'm going to like finish where I'm going and then I'm going to plan my next trip and we'll get off at that exit next time. And so that like I think my practice is like is building on like keeping You know mental notes of what I want to do on the next piece or when I have the opportunity or the space So certain certain things I could just make in my studio without a plan of where they're going to be shown But certain things that are large-scale like the playground I couldn't just make that and just have it sitting around the studio because it takes up a large amount of space So I have to kind of think about and plan what would be the best time and place to like exhibit something and making it so that I can get that idea out there but also conscious of like you know I do have to consider space and and what I'm able to make just within my own studio and also you know all these things have a cost to make as well.
How long does it take if you make every sculpture? It varies how long they take. It's definitely quicker when we're like making something we've made previously but these aren't necessarily things that are fast to make and unfortunately we're never making one thing at a time especially for an exhibition like it's like a big matrix of like like this show we did make per se in like three and a half months but they're That was like, it's not just me, I have a team of assistants that also help. And I'm trying to use them each to their best ability with also within like constraints of a 40 hour work week with maybe 20 hours of overtime, but.
But you know, conscious of it's also their summer vacation, or should have been. And we just had another show, so there's a lot of realistic things. It is possible to make these works, but also if I could have another two years to make this show, and make the same exact works.
I think that's one more question. There's two questions here. Okay, yeah. This will be really quick.
I just want to say that I think this presentation is really great. It's really layered. It feels like Tinder and evocative, and like you're saying, it's very personal but also very universal. I think you've also said this is your favorite show you've done so far and has some of your favorite sculptures. So I think I just want to hear your thoughts on that.
Why do you love this show so much? Well, unfortunately there is something you said last night. It's actually the best show yet.
So like, while I want, or I guess now I have two dogs, it's also that sort of question, now that I have two dogs, I would like... Someone, no one has asked, well, who's your favorite Belg now? But I do remember people saying, asking parents, who's your favorite child? Which I imagine they probably have in their head, like, the things they like about their different children better.
Certain things that one might excel at over the other one. But I guess they probably would never tell someone that actually, yes, I like this child better. There's probably things they like about each one that is, like, celebrating their uniquenesses.
And... But this is a little different. I mean, these are objects, these sculptures I'm making.
I am hoping that this is, like, this is my best work yet, but hopefully it will get better, and I, like, won't just stop and rest. And, like, all of these sculptures, many of the sculptures in the show are, like, improvements or further explorations of other works I've made, so that I can expand on ideas, because a lot of them are kind of laborious to make, and so that I'm using this as an opportunity to... Expand on some of the pieces are like a remix and a combination of previous sculptures like put in a blender and made like the football uniform is like combining multiple works into one new work that you know that could be six pieces like could it or you like technically the kitchen table could be five pieces like but I'm now I forgot what the question was but why is the national show your favorite show Oh, well, also I'm from Dallas, and even from a personal level, like I first came here as like an architecture student to look at the building, like not, I didn't, you know, I wasn't thinking I was becoming an artist, like I went to the like DMA every Wednesday in the eighth grade as part of a school program, so, but I, and I went to a school that had a museum in it, but in all those contexts it wasn't like becoming an artist was like a profession or a possibility that I thought was possible. And I studied architecture as this like sort of more creative professional pursuit. So it is surreal to now actually you know being from Dallas and now actually an artist having a show here is like quite significant because it having spent the first 18 years of my life in Dallas I do have a connection to it and sort of my understanding of it so that hopefully you know I wouldn't have I made this show to, I mean this show could be shown in New York but I wouldn't wouldn't have made this show to be shown in New York like because it does have some things that I think will speak more to the local audience or at least that showing the same work here I think more people who are like out not in the art world who would just live here could have a personal resonance with some of the works in the show and that I think that was important maybe that's me thinking as an architect about who the user is.
But like in terms of the audience and the context, I think that the show could have like a heightened experience here than it would be in Chelsea, New York. And so that that's exciting to me because I get shot in New York and they review the show or whatever would not be a pickup on all these sort of local connotations because they were just, you know, unaware of like certain histories. Like it's not like they can't experience the work, but they wouldn't have the same.
personal connection. And so that's exciting to be able to show, like if it's an Easter egg or something, like to show something where people might have a greater connection to it, or investment, or heightened experience is also exciting to me. Yeah? Okay, does your mom have a question? Hold on one second.
Can you stand up, Diane? I'm the mom, but I'm so proud of this young man. And the thing is, as an adult, we can all appreciate it, but I want to know, what do you want kids to get?
What would you aspire for the kids that's going to explore this as a, you know, field trip? What would you think that they would achieve by seeing your art? Um, well, hopefully they have like, um...
Some point of view of a child sees the show who's grown up in Dallas, they might find it interesting or relatable in some way. Even remotely more than they would maybe looking at an abstract painting across the street, that there's some notion of, hey, this looks familiar, but also very unfamiliar. I know it's a playground, but it's a hairbrush.
Hopefully a child seeing that might retool how they think about the world, that otherwise they wouldn't. I think that's an interesting possibility that could happen. I can't say what that would lead to, but I think the exposure to it, it's not, you know, they don't need it.
A three-year-old doesn't need a PhD to approach a playhouse. But, I mean, they might recognize that it looks like a church. And so I think, yeah, I'm interested in that it might just change some expected ideas about the world and what possibilities can be.
Thank you, Hugh. And thank you everyone for coming this afternoon and sticking with us. Well past time.
The show is up through January 7th, and I encourage everyone to make repeat visits, go spend some time up there while we're still open today, and yeah, thank you for coming.