WEBVTT

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(light music)

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- I think a lot about
the term body anxiety.

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I think about sitting
in the backseat of a car

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as a kid in like shorts, right?

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And you get up and like your
leg just sticks to the vinyl.

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Knowing that there's something about you

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that might appear gross

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to others is a pretty universal feeling.

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(light music continues)

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We're all like moving
around in these flesh cages

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that are essentially vulnerable.

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(light music continues)

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A lot of the processes I
use in the studio are things

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that exist, but also I kind of made up,

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or I'm not using them exactly

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the way that you're supposed to.

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I do a lot of grinding metal
and welding it together

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and grinding it again,

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and a lot of that is
to avoid casting metal,

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which is usually very expensive.

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I'm often figuring out a new method

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of what's often a very traditional process

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and in that way I think of myself

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as kind of a professional amateur.

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(light music)

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I can remember being in middle
school, maybe even younger,

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like 10 or 11,

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and finding a book that my mom
had that was like a history

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of chair design.

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I would kind of go through it

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and mark all the pages with
pictures that I was into

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and you know, my parents noticed that

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and got me a couple other chair books.

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I became more interested
in modernist design

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and through that started
working in mostly tubular steel.

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It's a industrial material that's become

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so ubiquitous, it's almost invisible.

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A lot of the time when I
start with a sculpture,

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I'm thinking about something
organic, interacting

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with something that
looks kind of industrial,

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something soft and something hard.

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I like that when something
looks like it's being pushed

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or pulled or squeezed in a sculpture,

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that really is what's happening.

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The silicone is being pushed or pulled

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or squeezed in those directions.

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- So the hottest part

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is that tip,
- Yeah.

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- Right.

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So I think if we, if
we come in straight up

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and down, you're definitely gonna get

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that hot bit's gonna really like-

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- Okay.
- Droop over

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- the more droop the better.
- Whereas... yeah.

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- I've also started working in glass.

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The main difference is that
it's kind of frozen in time.

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In that moment of the
sag or flop or squeeze.

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My attraction to the gourds
initially really came

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from their like kind of
unique warty texture.

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It's rare to see fruit

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or vegetable just come out of the earth

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and already have this kind of diseased,

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almost tumor like look.

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(light music)

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For these pieces

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I was really thinking
about adaptive structures

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that we may or may not be aware of,

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but are very ubiquitous
in the built environment.

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I was playing off of the handrails

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that exist in a staircase

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or might be the kind of ADA handrails

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that are in a bathroom.

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Most of my work comes from

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two or three different
reference points for me.

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I was looking at Hector Guimard's

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Paris train station streetlights.

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(light music continues)

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And I was also looking at the hoyer lifts

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that you would use to lift someone

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who might be bedbound
from a bed to a chair.

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I think with these objects
there's this kind of knowledge

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that if they're not something that

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you require in your life now to be mobile,

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you will at some point.

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So we all have this
relationship to them that is one

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of kind of inevitability
to a certain degree.

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(light music continues)

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My dad had ALS, which is a disease where

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you slowly become completely paralyzed,

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and so watching that progression happen,

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these adaptive elements went
from barely noticed parts

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of the built environment to, you know,

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really necessary elements to move around.

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To me, there's this very visceral moment

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that can lead itself to
this kind of sculptural

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way of thinking around the
way that a body interacts

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with the furniture and its environment.

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These stilt sculptures,

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they suggest a wearer
who's essentially balanced

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on these very precarious
looking bird legs.

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Navigating these equally dramatic

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and difficult to use handrails.

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(light music continues)

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A lot of the pieces that
I make, they are objects

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that we are all familiar with,

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but maybe out of context
you take something

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that is really familiar

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and make it kind of visible again.

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(light music continues)