Link to Art (xray-lefthand)
Curious Contraptions

Portrait of Oven

Click to view larger.
When I bought my oven for my new apartment after nearly 2 years with a broken oven (only the range worked), I was very excited and
a friend told me to draw a picture of it. Eventually, I decided to make the sketch into a more formal (ha) painting of it. 2009.
Ingredients: craft paint, crappy brushes, professionalism, somberness, quadskatephilia, sharpies. Full-size it is less than 6" long.

Grasp

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I went to a feminist art night where I thought we'd be given a theme, but instead they just said "go" - this is the result. 2009.
Skin & tattoos & wanting (or taking) things
Ingredients: magazine pictures, ink, rubber cement, copious time.


R.P.Inc.

Frontal view, click to see bigger.

Side view, click to see bigger.

Close-up view, click to expand (a little overexposed).
This is my college diploma that I unearthed from storage & I decided to make it more representative of my college experience. 2008.
Ingredients: magazine pictures, disillusionment, rubber cement, army man, blue gel, expended youth, ink, calculator parts, epoxy & too much f'n money.


Monster Cuz

Frontal view (at a bit of an angle), click to see bigger.

Original photo that it is based on.

Side view, click to see bigger.
My cousin is an amazing artist and I'm always bugging her to do more art & so she did an ultra-fabulous painting of me for my birthday,
so I decided to do my own collage portrait of her for her birthday (thus getting me back into art-making too) - this is it. 2008.
Materials: magazine/book pictures (mostly from a day in the life of the soviet union), rubber cement, epoxy, rubber/plastic snakes, marker/pen.

Encrypted
Encrypted front view (dark wire) - click to enlarge
Encrypted side and back views - click to enlarge
Encrypted angled view (shiny wire) - click to enlarge
Technology is a double-edged blade that makes our lives easier, but also disconnects us from ourselves and from nature.
Technology may help us grow as a species, but some of that growth is "apart." 2005.
Materials: acrylic paint (my first painting!), magazine pictures, steel wire, nails, wood, circuit wire, epoxy.

Dichotomy Enforcement front view - click to enlarge
Dichotomy Enforcement left view - click to enlarge
Dichotomy Enforcement back view - click to enlarge
Dichotomy Enforcement right view - click to enlarge
Transgender is a seesaw between monstrosity and invisibility; people either hate you or can't admit that you exist. This is a photo-montage of gender outlaw images built into a mannequin/sculpture. Skirt is based on a newspaper article entitled "Slaying of transgender teen haunts city". Click HERE to see more pictures/info. 2003.
Materials: mannequin torso, paint, photo-stickers, napkin, food-coloring, nail-polish, wire.

Anti-Depressant Barbie
AD Barbie full side view - click to enlarge
AD Barbie "Happy" close-up - click to enlarge
AD Barbie top view - click to enlarge
Presentation is everything in U. S. consumer culture: it's all about putting on a happy face and stylish clothes while advertising promotes the worst insecurities and fears, all in the name of the sacred sale. For those who get run down, feeling desperate, there is a cure - drugs! Totally legal and irrepresibly marketable biochemistry modification devices. Load up on pills and you're ready to go. Side effects may include: cloudy thoughts, muted emotions, sexual disinterest, itching, lesions, nausea and suicide. 2002.
Materials:
plastic doll, marker, paint, wire, prescription anti-depressants, pill bottle, mirror shards, razorblade.


Commodification of an Identity
Commodification collage - click to enlarge
This was a collage begun during an art party on New Year's Eve 1999-2000 (with finishing touches a month or so later), representative of the state of the world and my mind at the time. Prominantly features pictures of me and my two closest friends at the time (digital photos taken, altered and printed), but also appropriated mages, paint, shiny/patterned paper, razor blades, metal bits, fabric, chain, rubber snake and even a bit of my own blue hair. 2 feet high by 4 feet wide.


Chainmail

Chainmail - click to enlarge
I taught myself how to make chainmail in 1998 (from a metalsmithing book I'd had from a class in college). I made it from scratch with wire and a metal dowel (wrapping and cutting the links by hand), but I never did learn how to use a soldering iron (my links were not sealed, but since I used steel, they stayed closed pretty well). Since it took so long to make, I didn't make many things, but I made a 4" by 4" square, the bracelet in the picture (which I still wear), started a gauntlet and made an impressive elaborate belt which unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of before I gave it away (birthday present to a girlfriend just before a nasty breakup).

Spider is watching you
Swordweb1 - click to enlarge
Swordweb2 - click to enlarge

I gave this sculpture away and only have a few so-so photos from an art show it was in (it looked more impressive from the top than from the side). It was almost 4 feet wide at the widest point and about 2 and a half feet tall and contained two spiders (one of wax, the other of wire), a metal bat and two pairs of antique eyeglasses. My motivations were pretty abstract at the time, thinking mostly of tangled memories (including having bad vision) and just looking for a better aesthetic and way to free myself from the past. 1997.
Materials: broken fencing blades (spokes), chain, wire, eyeglasses, wax, sheet metal (aluminum).


Razor Suitcase
Razor Suitcase side - click to enlarge Razor Suitcase top - click to enlarge Razor Suitcase bottom - click to enlarge Razor Suitcase center w/ real razorblade - click to enlarge
Container made to represent the object contained (from metal-smithing class). 1996.
All parts (except razor blade inside) were made solely by me from sheet metal, wire and solder.



Eye Sore left detail - click to enlarge

Eye Sore

Eye Sore wide view - click to enlarge

Eye Sore right detail -  click to enlarge
Eyeglasses as a self-portrait (from metal-smithing class). 1996.
All parts were made solely by me from sheet metal, wire, screen and solder.