trash/treasures, plaster, mannequin
lifesize
2016
How Trashy Lady No. 1 (Gleason Pond Edition) Came to Be:
Working from my studio and living on Gleason Pond allows me to stay in touch with all of the happenings on the water. I know which animals have been born, who’s died, who’s learning to fly, who’s living where, who gets along etc. Often I’ll go on paddle boat rides to gain another perspective from what my dock can offer. This summer, I started scooping feathers out of the water hoping to collect them for a sculpture. On my excursions I began to take note of all the trash that was lying on the shore. Without a solid plan, I started picking up anything I saw and bringing it home (soon after I got my family involved too). I liked the idea of cleaning up the mess humans had left in the home of my feathered friends…but I also like free stuff. After several muddy excursions I began to shine up my trash in my yard..sometimes even in my bathtub. When the pond sludge came off and the object started to look a bit more like it’s former self, this “trash” started to feel more like treasure.
Scavenging for objects and repurposing them is exciting, especially when the objects have carelessly been tossed and deemed invaluable. The pond felt like a time capsule of Framingham history. Each object had a mysterious and unique past and often a history older than me. A Goodyear Super Cushion tire from the fifties…a John Bucyk Bruins cup from the seventies…countless vintage Budweiser cans. I found bottles, wrappers, fishing poles, bobbers, buckets, pots, tubes, sheets, brooms, you name it.
So how did all of this trash become a trashy lady? Most of my sculptural work and paintings stem from the figure because it is simply what I am most drawn to. Creating a somebody out of nothing comes with a thrill that I think Frankenstein could understand. I soon realized that I wanted to create a patron of the pond, a beautiful lady swamp monster, a guardian angel of the waters...thus, “Trashy Lady No.1” came to be.
