Since know one has asked me yet…”Why are you using that nasty Styrofoam to make your art?’…I thought I might say a few words and use this work from early February of this year. The above image shows an especially large hunk of polystyrene about to be beached by the waves of the Ohio River. Do you think the river, in its way is trying to tell us something? Fresh water is such a precious resource that we should not take even what seems an abundant supply for granted. I hauled this Styrofoam onto the beach which wasn’t easy since it was wet, very cold, and water-logged. For years, my experiences in this park have been marred by the debris that washes up here from points north. I had to wait about two weeks before I could do anything with this “prize”.
Here’s a detail of the completed figure. I augmented the large piece with a smaller chunk that could serve as the head. Fishing bobbers, parts of shoes, driftwood, assorted plastic, and a lost life vest are the materials in this work. Because I consider what I do as a collaboration with nature, I respect the forms the river gives me by not carving or altering them to any great extant. I always marvel at how the river’s processes shape the Styrofoam, in ways that I couldn’t easily replicate. This figure is able to stand because one of its arms is hooked around a tree.
Here are front and back views of the “Refrigerator Man”, so named because of where I sited this figure. The refrigerator washed up a couple years ago…at least someone bothered to remove the door. The thing about polystyrene is that although it is organic by definition (think of the carbon rings) it doesn’t occur without our help. The resins used to make this material are extracted from petroleum…which itself is an extract of life. Polystyrene has this out-of-sync quality to it that I feel increasingly characterizes us and our relationship to the world that sustains us. You wonder how it is even economically feasible to make this material from what also seems a limited resource? On this day, the river was icy and especially cold. My nose ran constantly and my toes were getting numb.
About a week later, I went back to “Refrigerator Man” to see how he was faring. As you can see…not too good. Some person or persons tied him up to a tree using a yellow, nylon rope and I’m guessing used him for target practice and beheaded him. What happens to my projects is usually interesting . In their own way, they become little experiments in human behavior. I did untie “Refrigerator Man” and stashed his body away to be recycled into another art project for future use.
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