Process

SH My friend Melissa is going to help me make a book, hopefully it'll be ready, I don't know if it'll be ready for the opening cuz some of the pieces still have to be kind of installed and put together at the opening, but I would try to have a least a rough draft version of it done.

But I mean that's great but there is so much about the story telling side of it that has to be like.... You can read stories till your blue in the face, but some of them just come alive when the people read them or tell them.

SS That reminds me of what that linguist explained in that article we just read, about how it is the way that something is said, not just what they say that conveys meaning, and the Avalanche article showed how even though they are able to write in a very conversational style it is still not the same as hearing the voice.

SH and its like timing and shit is everything.. and I keep listening to different people, while i was doing some of these pieces I was listening to books on CD, and some people were ... I listened to Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama cds because i was tired of feeilng like the stuff you listen to on television with them campaigning was too scripted and thought this would be more “them” them reading their own books so and hillary was much more stiff and, i don't know, where as Barak Obama just felt more comfortable in his own skin. You know like all politics aside, he is a better orator and better storyteller. I mean like there's more adjectives more lists, and he's just better showing or at telling pictures.

Also, talking to Rita, she's like, you speak slow, (laughter) if you were in new york people would probably just think you're.... dumb. (lots of laughing) In new york man, if you don't talk fast people just aren't going to listen to ya. So there are obviously different ways to tell a story depending on where your from and thats interesting to me too, I wrote some in the blog about where I'm from trying to figure out what that means to me, how much of that is in me.

RS, The stairs that you built that are on the blog... can you tell me about that experience?



SH I finished undergrad and I was trying to find an interesting place to work, and there was this architect who was close friends with my dad and I had been to this wood shop he went to after he quit architecture to work with his brother ........19.3.. didn't write it can fill it in, is about charleston, history of high end wood shop,
2 years, jmo almost like father figures, an amaingly well put together business kind of perfectly put together shop, everything moved fluidly, it was really amazingly laid out,22.09.....

I worked my way up in that place.... Kind of like established trust...

SS so do you think that experience, you obviously have so much respect for the actual way the business was designed, the physical layout of the space and the organization, do you think that you have brought some of that with you, you have learned from that?

sh. very much


ss Looking comparatively your studio is pretty organized, I mean youv'e got everthing in a place and a place for everything,, and you're working with all these different mediums which makes that harder.

SH yeh, um, he , its funny, somebody told me you build work according to the size of your studio, I mean it you don't have a studio you figure out a way to make work, and if you have a studio and I do have one because it comes with your tuition , I'm not going to make an enormous piece in my studio because it won't fit... I guess I started working really small, not like because . I feel like I could have made some larger pieces in here but just because of the portability it fits with the project, I can go and talk with people and work. Go to them instead of making them come to me to do a portrait.

RS Your tank was really big though, do you feel like that was more Gordon's project?




SH No that's definitely our project. I guess that.. its weird, that ones this project that exists digitally first. I kind of drew the entire thing on the computer and it exists entirely in my head in digital space first. It wouldn't have happened at all if we didn't have the shop and a place to show it right after it got built. Right now were just stuck (laughs) putting it in somebody's way, its totally in the way at the place it got shown , cuz they have to move on to the next show. , its just like in the attic, until we move it.

SS Tell us about this over hear, this time line looking thing?

SH Thats a, its been a really weird totally awkward really, its just been my in studio sketch book, a lot of times I've been talking on the phone with some of the people I'm doing these projects with and they'll describe something, or tell me a story, and they'll help me try to depict it and I'll take notes.

SS There is some kind of ephemeral sensuality to anything drawn or written on tissue paper.

SH Thats the same thing (materials) I took one architecture class and I have this enormous roll of tissue paper, they call it bum wad.

SS Bum Wad?

SH that's what I heard.

Laughing,

SS bum wad..? there's a scale thing for you...

Laughing
RS How many People have you done so far?



SH They're all in different stages of completion, Completely done is maybe two or three, because most of them still have the faces to be carved, the f aces are the hardest part and I can do the gestures and the pose of with our them around because I have that in my head, but the faces.... I'm still new at subtractive carving so I'm still scared of accuracy and not doing things in the presence of the people.

RS How many do you have in a more completed stage, or have you started all 20 of them?

SH I have 6 more to start.

RS What I'm trying to get at is I feel like having 20 is just too much. If you just worked on the ones you have here you're going to be able to make the projects with the people more interesting. Like right now if you are focusing on getting these things done... these are really nice, and you want to make sure you can get that done, but it seems like I see more of this completed than your other projects.

SH What other projects?

RS Like if these are about the projects with the other people, you said all those projects are in the show too? It seems like a lot to try and make it all work together in the show.

SS So when you say the projects you mean like with Mandy's and what I just asked you about the coffee pot.





SH This will help sort of clarify some things, the open ended part is, I don't know exactly how much stuff is going to be included in each project, and the project for mandy is just going to include her figure the coffee pot, maybe some photographs of the coffee pot actually out at alder flats, her and I are going to go camping there again, and take some photographs, and some plastic... that rubber thing on the wall right there, and that was use to patch...laughs ... that's another story about that same trip. The day before we went camping we went rafting, just her and I in this raft we borrowed from Prudence Roberts and Terry. There was a cut in the bottom, water coming in, too much water, at a certain point we pulled over and were flipping the raft over to get all the water out, and this guy came down from his truck and said (guy voice) “you got a cut in your raft you need some duct tape?” and we were like, Yeah that would be amazing. He runs up to his truck and he doesn't have duct tape he has electrical tape, and we didn't think it would hold but he was like “oh you just keep it”. So I fashioned this patch out of electrical tape.

But if you've seen Mandy's work, her work is collagy sort of stuff, all these components that don't really relate mixed in together and then she just places things around and composes it, so that's going to be very much present in her piece. And there will be some other form of the story that we'll have to tell too, so there will be an audio piece too.

SS So you're not only combining your stories, but your also kind of combining your aesthetics, and ways of working. Well at least with that story, it seems like a really tender approach.