Pollution

An inconvenient truth lies behind the beauty of every intensely crimson sky seen at twilight.   The brilliance of the sky provides evidence of the mounting pollution among us.  The appearance of warm glowing hues in the sky is visual indication of human generated aerosols  present in the atmosphere.  The combustion of fossil fuels is the most common human behavior which releases aerosols in the atmosphere.  Such explains the brilliantly captivating colors present in cities dense with automobiles.

In making this piece I used a quick and fairly simple firing method known as  Saggar: A Saggar firing uses harsh chemicals that achieve bright flashes of color.  I create a toxic environment using ferric chloride, welding wire, and copper chore-boy scrubbies all wrapped in a tinfoil bundle.  With this process the labor is minimal and the results can be viewed the same day they are fired.

Installed in the RAT Gallery, 2009

I created this sculpture to juxtapose Saggar-induced surfaces with my more common, wood-fired, work. Wood-firing is a labor intensive method of firing.  One spends weeks preparing a wood kiln.  Wood kilns require constant stoking from anywhere between 12-150 hours which requires the collaboration on many people’s parts:  Wood-firing is the trade of labor for the liberation from burning fossil fuels.  Once firing is complete a kiln can take up to a week to cool down before you can behold your work.

Wood firing offers a very unique and magical quality I esteem; even though the ashen surfaces do not exhibit a flirtation with the eye,  like those flashy saggar surfaces.   As I practiced the two methods I realized the compromises made in the studio can be related to other aspects of life and how those lifestyles manifest in the world around us.  It is good to remind ourselves that even if the flashy plastic consumer world presents immediate solutions, if we look further, through a consciousness creative mind, an environmentally sound option will appear.  Allowing creativity to replace convenient commodities.  The results ultimately prove to be far more rewarding and in general, aesthetically pleasing.

The title comes from deep within my consciousness when somebody told me that the beauty of the sunset that so captivated me would not be as dynamic without the presence of pollution in the sky.  So began in me a pull towards an environmentally sound life in the midst of an alluring consumer culture.