Pentimenti: Strata #8 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with pine tree needles | 38 x 43 x 17 cm | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #4 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with pine tree needles | 43 x 43 x 5 cm | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #1 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with pine tree needles | 43 x 40 x 3 cm | private collection | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #6 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with pine tree needles | 43 x 45 x 3 cm | private collection | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #9 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with pine tree needles | 48 x 43 x 6 cm | CAPP Collection of Contemporary Art, University of Maryland | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #10 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with pine tree needles | 43 x 45 x 5 cm | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #16 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with pine tree needles and iron slag spherules | 43 x 43 x 4 cm | private collection | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #17 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with pine tree needles and iron slag spherules | 43 x 43 x 4 cm | private collection | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #11 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with pine tree needles | 58 x 58 x 5 cm | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #14 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with pine tree needles and iron slag spherules | 58 x 60 x 5 cm | Kohler Co. Collection | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #15 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with pine tree needles and iron slag spherules | 58 x 60 x 4 cm | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #21 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with iron slag spherules | 60 x 58 x 5 cm | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #22 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with iron slag spherules | 60 x 58 x 5 cm | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #24 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with iron slag spherules | 61 x 56 x 4 cm | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #26 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with iron slag spherules | 60 x 57 x 5 cm | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #2 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with apple tree flowers | 43 x 29 x 3 cm | private collection | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
Pentimenti: Strata #19 | 2018 | sand-cast brass with iron slag spherules | 43 x 45 x 13 cm | photo credit: Arts/Industry Residency Program, John Michael Kohler Arts Center + Kohler Co.
PENTIMENTI: STRATA
supported by: KOHLER Arts/Industry Residency Program | special thanks: Kristin Plucar, Garrett Krueger, Robert Halfmann, Mark Crawford, Sophie Heyen-Dubé
Mold-making and casting, a Bronze Age metalworking technique, emerged in my most recent industrial artist residency as a revelatory new language in my process. While also in the residency, slag, a foundry byproduct, emerged as an unlikely medium for conveying timelessness. Not only does slag share certain physical characteristics with such geologically timeless objects as earth-origin volcanic rocks and celestial-origin meteorites, even one-day-old slag fragments resonate with Etruscan, Egyptian or other archaeological slag.
Early in casting brass and iron alloys at the factory I realized the manner in which molten metal is poured into the mold significantly affects the resultant metal surface’s color, tone, and texture. This was especially prominent with brass castings of delicate ice crystal configurations. In Pentimenti: STRATA series, partly controlling the hand-pouring rhythm and speed, I crystallize the flow of molten metal into an almost two-dimensional work where the surface manifests a forged geological strata-like formation.