WEBVTT

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ALLAN MCCOLLUM:
If you can draw these simple forms–

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the ball, cone, cube,
and cylinder– you can draw

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a real picture the very first
time you try.

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- I had an Uncle– his name was
Jon Gnagy– who had a television show

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Learn to Draw.

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-Today we're going to draw

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a snow scene, in which we make
the paper work for us.

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We don't have to do too much
work ourselves.

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- And he would design these
drawings that he could then

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teach other people how do to.

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- Just put in those ragged

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strokes, always remembering that
a pine tree is a rough cone form.

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That post, you know,
is a cylinder form,

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so you shade it down the left,

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like this, to really make it
Round out.

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Remember, our light's coming
from the other– upper right.

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Yes, it used to be that the
mailbox was the chief point of

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contact, but, you know,
nowadays, a lot of these folks

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have television.

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-You know, I knew him, and

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I just got the feeling that it
never occurred to him to come up

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with a painting or drawing that
he couldn't tell someone else

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step-by-step how to do.

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So I was just a child,
but that influenced me.

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Whenever I design a project,

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it's in my head while I'm
designing it that I would be

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able to show someone else how to
do it.

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This looks a little bare up
here, but for now, it's okay,

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I guess.

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The drawings that I sent

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to Sao Paulo were done in 1989,
and they were created from

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templates that I made in 1988.

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The stimulus for this particular
drawings were triggered by an interest

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in heraldry and the way that
families come up with images to

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represent their family.

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And I was thinking about
symbols, and I was thinking,

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"Well, okay, we typically create

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singular symbols so that we can
all feel we belong."

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Like, we look at the American

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flag, and we say, "Oh, we're all Americans."

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It occurred to me that if one
used a certain kind of logic

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and really worked at it,
one could come up with a system

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that would produce a shape for
everybody on the planet.

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The idea of trying to picture
a billion or a million

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Is something we think we can do.
But we can't.

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Say you're a general in the

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army, and you have to send
al these troops out to have

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a battle, and you know only
so many are going to come back,

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and it's gonna break your heart
and make you sick unless you

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start thinking of them as
all alike in some way:

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just soldiers, just units, you know.

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And, I mean, that's an extreme

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example, but there's times when
you have to think about people

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in categories, or you'll go crazy.

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But that can go wrong also, and

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it's something you have to watch
and think about.

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One of the things that I'm
a little concerned about is,

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when you get, like, a whole
bunch of the same width

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and the same...

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- Mm-hmm.

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- you know, that's just another
thing to...

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- Wait, you mean like different sizes?

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- Like, you don't want two the

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same size together.

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You don't want two the same
width together.

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You don't want two...

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- Yeah.

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- I mean, it's so funny.
It has nothing to do with what's

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in the frame, you know?
[both chuckle]

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Sometimes you can't do anything

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about it, but if you can,
you know, shift it so that--

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-Okay, so I'll
double-check that.

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-Yeah, I mean, that's just
one thing.

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In my youth, I worked in
factories quite a lot.

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I mean, I worked in industrial
kitchens quite a lot.

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And my parents worked in
factories.

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I found myself wanting to try to

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work in quantities and make
things that were singular and

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unique at the same time.

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We probably define uniqueness by

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thinking, "Oh, it's not
mass-produced."

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I felt I wanted to resolve that
on a higher level.

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But there is, of course, the
drama of thousands of things.

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It can be nightmarish, or it can
be wonderful feeling of

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abundance, and it can go back
and forth.

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And there's a lot of
emotionality when you see

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thousands of things.

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Some people would want to run

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out of the room when there's
too many objects to look at,

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and other people would stand
there in awe.

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There's also a kind of science
fiction element in here where–

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of, like, something that sort of
takes over and grows.

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When I'm juggling ideas of what
I'm gonna do next,

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one of the considerations that's major
always in my mind is, "Does it

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make a good story?"

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I put it in my mind that it

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would be interesting to work
with people I had never met,

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that I only communicated with
over email or telephone.

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Like, you go in to see the exhibit.

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Well, it could just be looked at
as a bunch of little decorative objects.

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But there's a story
that goes with it.

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You can tell it rather quickly.

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I wanted it to be: "Oh, the
artist went on the internet.

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The artist found four people

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from the state of Maine who all
of whom worked from their homes

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and all of whom made shapes,
and he never met them.

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It was sort of about the–
the exotic, faraway place,

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I mean, which, to me–

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I've only been to Maine once in
my life, and it seems very

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exotic to me, Maine.

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[low, deep rumbling]

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And I started becoming
interested in people who had

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businesses in their homes and
also kind of very independent.

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And kind of like the contrary to
our obsession with globalism

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right now, you know, is that
there are people locally all

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around us working in their
homes, making thousands of things.

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I looked on the web.

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I looked up "Maine," you know,
On– googled, "Maine, craft,

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home," you know, all the words
that would lead me to people who

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worked at home and made craft
in Maine.

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And I had to sift through
hundreds and hundreds and–

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and slowly realized, "This is
a huge thing in maine: you know,

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people working at home making
crafts and then selling them on

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the internet.

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I chose a narrow group of them
who basically did shapes,

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Like rubber stamps,
ornaments,

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silhouettes,
and cookie cutters.

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And then I wrote them lengthy
emails about my work and what

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my interests were and why
I wanted do to this, I mean,

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emails that--much too long,
I'm sure.

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- I had no idea who he was.

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My first thought was that he
might be a kid claiming

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to be an artist.

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Of course, you don't ever know
on an email.

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And then after I investigated
and went to his website,

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I found out that he was quite
an accomplished contemporary artist.

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[metal clicks softly]
-The cookie cutter people?

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I don't know–

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I don't know how they–

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I never watched how they did
what they did, so they–

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If they invented a new–
a way they hadn't done before–

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I do know that they used to make
snowflakes, and there's no way

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this shape is more complicated
than the snowflakes

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they were making.

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[laughs]

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-Some of his shapes were very
difficult.

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It was challenging.

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[chuckles]

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And actually, I would say, after
making the shapes for Allan,

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That I'm improved.

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I mean, I'm better at what I do
because– because of that

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project, because I actually
learned how to do some things better.

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- I've been doing
combinatorial projects for 40 years.

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All my projects have had
combinatorial elements, where

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I'm taking a vocabulary of parts
and putting them together to

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make something else, you know,
which is very computerlike,

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but there was never any computer Involved.

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The Shapes Drawings Individual Works Project,

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neither of which
involved any computers.

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The drawings even look like
the shapes that I'm working on

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now, but they were all done by
hand with pencil.

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And I didn't have a computer at
that time.

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In those days, I was using
photocopiers and stencils and

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things like that.

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Whereas if I had to do this with
stencils, it would've taken me

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an hour, but what I can do now
is just reach up here

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and copy one shape, like that,
and then go over here

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and copy another one,
and then I can put those together.

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And then copy a bottom,
and put that together.

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And then copy, you know,
a bottom that goes on the right,

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and we'll put that together.

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And then I have a shape,
and it has its own I.D. Number.

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I mean, this just doesn't take
very long.

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So with these four shapes, I can
make around 200 or so million

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unique shapes.

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But there's another system where
I use six shapes,

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and then there's these things
I call necks, like your neck.

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Like, this is a body with
a neck, and then the top part

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is a head.

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So then once you start using
this system, you can produce

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60 billion shapes.

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Once I got all the shapes made,
I started combining them into

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tops and bottoms.

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Then instead of making four
parts, I would only have to put

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together two at a time.

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Then I put them in what I call
arrays of 144.

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So I can copy this array and
combine it with this array.

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Then I'm making 144 shapes
at once, and that's called

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a collection.

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That's how I produce them:
in collections of 144.

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The number 144, there's an irony
to it 'cause it's considered

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a gross in industry.

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This is one of the collections
that was sent to horace varnum

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to do the wooden shapes.

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-Every one is absolutely
unique.

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Every one is different.

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ome, you sit there,
and you work with them.

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You cut with them.

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And it's almost like sitting in
a psychologist's office, and you

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see shapes: this is a wolf head.
This is an angel.

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This is–

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So it's fun.
[machine whirring]

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See, it's soft enough that it

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won't cause any damage, unless
you're doing it for an hour or two.

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It's what thieves do to take off
their fingerprints.

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[laughs]

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-The idea of making an object
for everybody in the world

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is absurd.
Yeah, of course.

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I mean, I couldn't possibly
do it.

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But it would be nice if everyone
in the world– doesn't this sound

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like a child talking–
if everyone in the world could

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agree on a symbolic system,
You know?

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And it hasn't happened yet,
but it's– I think it's–

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it might, you know,
one day.

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[soft electronic music]