
2017 – Present
On Paper
THROW AWAY PEOPLE On Paper - Artist Statement
I started to save every scrap of paper which came with products I bought. I saved everything (except toilet paper and paper towel rolls). I saved the paper that came with medications, I saved the paper tea bags came in, I saved the box the lawnmower came in, the tags on clothes. If it crossed the threshold of my home, I saved it.
Consumerism is an issue I am concern with. The aim of this project was to exhibit the vast amount of post consumer packaging that came into my life. I was overwhelmed with all the waste. It was all over my house: piles of different sizes littered the kitchen, the living room, my office/studio and the garage. My wife was very patient as our house began filling up with recyclables. I decide to repurpose all this packaging into drawing and painting.
Each and every day for a year I tried to keep up with the amount of paper packaging that I was using. If I had 5 empty boxes from the day, I would try to repurpose them with my art and I could not keep up. I was consuming at such a rate it was dumbfounding. In my mind I was multiplying my use to the use of all my neighbors, my town, my state, to the United States, to the globe. Absolutely a crisis.The concerns I have for the environment and for a humane humanity is the backbone of my THROW AWAY PEOPLE.
Sculptures
The 500+ piece series looks at how strength can be gained from a ragtag of scraps, forced together to make a structure that supports itself, no matter how clumsy. What I found most interesting is that paper is everywhere, we use it without much thought to where it comes from. I use paper everyday, and I rarely think of forests that are decimated to create paper that i make art on. Nothing has value anymore, the paper is as unimportant as the trees. In a post consumer society everything is replaceable. These sculptures hope to shed light on the idea of strength vs. frailty: the pieced and patched scraps of human beings wandering aimlessly, whose purpose is to be reused, reduced, and recycled.THROW AWAY PEOPLE Sculptures - Artist Statement