I like both supervising and hands-on work.  Typically the projects where I’m directly involved are temporary installations–fiber.  I will have assistance but it’s on those that I’m directly involved. With the bigger projects, permanent projects, it necessarily becomes me supervising because I don’t have cranes, I don’t weld…

I always like to try to have some aspect where I’m involved.  So, for example on Dream Elevator, I supervised fabrication and installation of concrete and steel, and allowed for that fiber portion to be done by me.  Collection Point is similar–everything is fabricated, but the stenciling is what I’m doing. I like to have some imprint on it.

In Toledo, I was walking around looking at poles and saying drive that one six inches more, let’s put a blue one here or a yellow one there.  And so I was creating the art. I mean, there’s a lot to it–the color, the placement, the heights–and that’s great. Especially if I don’t have to pound them in! I just run around telling people what to do and then it happens. And they’re better at it than I am, that’s why.  I do what I’m good at, but I don’t need to have my hands in everything. In fact, I’d rather not, because sometimes what someone else does for me is not what I wanted or expected–for the better. And that’s another source of enriching the project.

Smaller projects tend to be closer to the community, in general, which is actually very rewarding.  The bigger project are more removed somehow, impersonal… Honestly, one of the reasons I do these things is to go meet the people, to be involved.  Those are the memories. Meeting Pete, talking with people–it goes beyond the art. So these smaller projects are always like these small parks–and that’s great.  I love that. I need a little bit of budget though to have some comfort to explore and not feel like something’s going to change the whole project because it doesn’t work all of a sudden. I would like to have the option to explore during the project.  And some of the bigger projects afford that possibility. It’s not just the money. I’m interested in scale too. I like making big things that impact an environment. Building, landscape… things that will last.

Chattanooga, close closer closest, collection point, Dream Elevator, Minneapolis, RE: Pete, Toledo