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When I was younger, I would do this a lot.

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I would cut faces or pictures out of books

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and I would tape them to sticks--

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set them up in my room[br]and shine lights at them,

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so that when I turned my own lights off,

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they were reflected in my windows.

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I was trying to get over[br]being scared of this idea

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of this presence in my window.

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I wouldn't say that that actually helped.

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But it was sort of exhilarating.

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It was sort of fun.

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And it was the beginning of a process[br]that maybe is helping me.

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The voyeur in my work is not supposed[br]to be a scary or threatening presence

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in the way that I feel like it's often[br]portrayed in movies and novels.

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It's maybe somebody that feels[br]just outside the equation.

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The voyeur is actually[br]what I am in the process.

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["Dan Herschlein Looks Inside"]

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[Dan Herschlein, artist]

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I was driving out to Long Island each day[br]to work on these sculptures

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in the den in my parents house on Long Island.

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They gave me half of the room

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and rest of it was everything else[br]that was in the room,

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pushed over.

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The sculptures are very much[br]based on Long Island,

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and my growing up there,

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and my feelings of growing up there--

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and the specific kind of[br]aloneness that I felt there.

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Part of my fantasy about this place

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was that I was going to be able to[br]stay up all night working in here

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and be alone.

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But then my parents are sleeping

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and I can't even, like,[br]drill into the wood.

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Realizing that this[br]fantasy of solitude

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is just not even real.

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The "Night Pictures,"

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they're a sequential set of images

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that are of plaster reliefs on wood.

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They are different from other pieces

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in that they've really accepted[br]the fact that they're on a picture plane.

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It's using a rectangular form[br]to say the same thing that

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I often try to say with[br]a sculpture on the floor.

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What people deem to be creepy--

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categorize as horror--

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that's the language[br]or the genre

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I think that I'm working within,[br]is horror.

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The thing that I'm emphasizing[br]within that is

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desire for comfort[br]or need for comfort

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or even the ability of horror to comfort.

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Before I was even[br]making sculptures or anything,

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a close friend of mine died in a fire.

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I built up this leg

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that I made to look as if it was burnt.

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I kept coating it and coating it

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until it became the flesh of a normal leg.

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That was the beginning of me making[br]these more figurative sculptures.

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There's definitely fear involved.

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There's a pain to that.

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But it's more helpful than[br]just sitting with my own thoughts.

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I think it was important to do[br]something with my hands.

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There's certain body parts[br]in each sculpture that I'll cast.

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Cast my hands, my feet,

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my knees, my nipples.

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Those are the things that give[br]more a sense of reality to these things.

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It lets everything else fade[br]and break down at points.

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The big mission of mine[br]is reevaluating maleness and masculinity.

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The ability of a man to bury their own emotions

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to a point where they[br]can't even find them again

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is unparalleled.

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The headlessness is because of[br]the head just being totally inverted.

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It's absolutely just down inside the body.

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It feels really emasculating[br]in this really great way to me.

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It's a kind of self reflection.

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I am very anxious.

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I am scared.

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I am sad.

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But here are these moments where,

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if I can look at that at face value--

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see these things--

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maybe it's fine to be scared or sad

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or anxious.

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It's not such a threat or something.

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It's just normal.