[Martin Puryear: "Big Bling"]
--[PURYEAR] There's a story in the making of objects.
--There's a narrative in the fabrication of things
which, to me, is fascinating.
I think, working incrementally,
there is a built-in story.
I think it isn't just for the artist.
I get from people's reactions
that they do find something interesting
in the way the pieces are made--
not simply in the form that results
but actually in the way that they're made.
--[CRAIG VAN COTT] We're making big pieces of wood
out of little pieces of wood
[Craig Van Cott, President, Unalam]
with the help of glue and clamps
and high-frequency microwaves
to make it all stick together.
The intricacy of what Martin was looking for
was something that we had to actually
buy some new machinery for.
We had to make very tight radiuses on the arches--
the ribs that are holding the plywood together.
And there were a lot of tight angles.
This is giving us exposure that we don't usually get--
Our product is holding up a roof
and what's under the roof is what gets all the exposure.
[PURYEAR] I've had to open myself up--
both to working with assistants,
but also to working with people outside the studio
who I have to engage to do the larger pieces
because I don't have the facilities to make
a thirty- or forty- or fifty-foot-high work in my studio
nor do I have the technical facilities
to work with certain materials.
It's putting yourself in the hands of other people
and trusting their skill
and their willingness to do what you want.
--[JOHN LASH] This was to be a very industrialized piece.
The outside was to look like it was a salvaged piece.
We did look into running recycled wood for the project.
[Madison Square Park, New York City]
We had a problem with the fact that
it is in a public place
and you would have to engineer every piece of wood
to make sure that it was structurally sound.
[John Lash, President, Digital Atelier]
So, we were able to meet and find standards
that made it look like an industrial product.
We were going to put a cloth wire or chain link
around the whole piece.
[PURYEAR] One of the most important elements
when you're coming up with the work
is the scale--
how big it needs to be.
And, for me,
that's always been, in some ways,
the most difficult
but also the most crucial part of a project.
I prefer to have work that doesn't have
to relate to a building.
So this relates more to the people, hopefully,
who are going to be circulating around it.
The wire mesh, I've used repeatedly
because I'm interested in the way that it both
is a way of creating and defining a volume--
a surface--
that's very clear in space
and yet, the same time,
it has a kind of transparency
because of the holes in the mesh--
the openings in the mesh.
From a distance,
it tends to look very, very massive and heavy.
And what I like is the dichotomy
between that heaviness and massiveness
and the actual sense of it as, really, a veil.
It's just a thin skin
that's very permeable--
very open.
As you approach it, you realize
that you're actually looking through it--
you see light through it.
And as you walk around it
and as you get closer,
you realize that it's really just a thin crust of mesh.
It looks very boulder-like and massive.
I like the dichotomy between those two experiences.
My work has a potential for evolution--
for change and open-endedness--
which, to me, feels resonant with what it is to live a life.