sculpt

my tools. it occurred to me that i’ve made nearly every single one of my wire figures with these 2 tools with the exception of the first few, (most importantly, 2 people eating chinese food (2017), that piece inspired all other wire twisting and i am forever indebted to it). I got these pliers and wire cutter from Scrap in Portland, OR. The wire cutters are engraved with “Walt WAGNER”. We both held this tool ~ hehe Walt and i held hands. It’s a hefty tool. He’s probably dead now. I wonder what he made with them, i wonder what Walt was like ? Walt was my grandfather’s name. the best man i ever knew. I wonder if he would like the things i make. The scratched letters remind me of the “SANTANA” my brother etched into his graphing calculator with a pin. i like these tools, they travel well and do exactly what i would like them to do.

not pictured: but very important, my yellow olfa cutter 300 snap-off blade. i use that one a lot too. purchased new from somewhere i don’t remember

i really enjoy twisting wire. i let little things find me and inspire characters. i never buy things for projects aside from the wire. my current materials are mostly a jar full of beads from a box of bracelets that i had as a kid. there are flat jade beads, round purple beads from a gift from china, puka shells from when i was the coolest tween eveR, smiley face beads, a handful of old earrings, lots of pony beads, and other things collected from jobs and bits always from the recycling bin. this era of pieces will be characterized by these things and i like that. mixing together different parts of my life feels fun and alchemical in a way.

years and a minute (2022) – i made this little vid on Instagram so it’s watermarked, and that’s silly. It’s the only record i have of this piece. the nutella came from my first trip to Italy when I was 16. I went with my class and it was quite possibly the greatest experience of teenagehood. I saved the jam jar from a brunch basket because the expiration date is my best friend’s birthday. the ladybug on the bouquet is an earring that i used to wear as a kid – i was into ladybugs in a big way.

sometimes people ask me how long it takes to make these and really it takes only a minute or two of twisting but that’s not all it takes to make something. A creation takes lifetimes of collisions that culminate in one final product. when was Nutella invented? I don’t know. Those earrings? Seeing Calder’s work as a young person. Watching my dad manipulate his tools to build a new project. Jam, wire, flowers. metal ore sitting in the earth somehow ending up here in a wire form. stuff. coming together in a silly little configuration.

these two went missing from my house after a big party just a week or so after i made them. years and years gone in a minute

dilly’s bindle (2023) sometimes things just wander into your life and take you by surprise, ya know? a sweet treat, a little mystery, a lot goofy, i bet dilly can play the spoons real good. i wonder what’s in his bindle.

wire, bead, twig, tissue paper, string, and mike’s hot, honeyyy

especial (2022) these are inspired in part by Hattie Lindsley’s painted modelo cans. i like the gold and silver.

modelo can, jade bead from kidhood bracelet, wire

the mountaineer / sherpa (2022) : little bits of inspiration from Hmong embroidery and bejewelry with some nepalese sherpa vibes and of course wise gnome explorer / borrower.

pack is hand braided friendship bracelet carrying yarrow and some seed pod. jewels are jade from kidhood and one from the pair of my first earrings. wandering, wondering

tabasco for tash, from tash (2022)

unknown swinger (2022)

dancing through it (2017) now belongs to my good friend Dew

i freaked out when i found that mini lego (2018)

dmoe funk (2018)

treehouse for a mouse (2017) Portland, OR

this piece is highly personal and an essential block in the healing work that i was doing at the time. this was the final piece i made as an intern in an art therapy studio. the assignment was to make the outside of the box what you show to the world and the inside your inner self.

high atop clouds in the mountains, meant to feel like a refuge in the Himalayas, a gnome, a worry doll, and a wire figure sit around a bowl. my Self, consciousness, higher mind, spirit, my is-ness ~ whatever you want to call it ~ shares space with the gnome, a symbol for me that has always represented good, magic, innocence, wonder, and the worry doll, a symbol of anxiety, fear, shame, addictions, self destructive behavior.

this space inside me exists and the only way to reconcile the two is to sit with both and know that there is not all good or all bad. there’s a balance and harmony in the world swirling and meshing together that makes things, makes us, makes me complete.

cigar box, nat geo magazines, wire, Peruvian worry doll, a teeny tiny gnome (a gift from a past lover), popsicle sticks, honeycomb cardboard, a branch, some trinkets, some love, some fear, some courage

2 people eating chinese food (2017) : this piece was inspired by a quotation that is all but lost now. actually i could find it really easily, i know what notebook it is in and where to find it. ok i’ll go find it. ok, i found it, the quote was ” i cannot let my fear of the past color the future” at the time i was recovering and healing a lot of old pains. i imagined my present self talking to an old version of me. the noodles in the present are the contained sense of the tangled mess of the past. i love how this one came together. and the stories that it inspired from there.

hot glue, screws, card stock, fishing line, picture hanging wire, some yarn, a block of wood.