Chewing

2022

handmade bookcloth, bookboard, lasercut plexiglass, wood shavings

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I’ve considered this piece a failure for the last two years–all the way up until I decided it was going on my website. I have a tendency to label something I’ve created or done “bad,” then avoid ever looking at it again–both the physical object and my thoughts about it. My perfectionism and shame cause me to close my eyes and plug my ears.

la la la la la la la I cant hear youuuuu.

Upon returning to this piece; however, I found there had been a wealth of discovery:

Prior to this work, I had never attempted to make bookcloth by hand. For the first time since the previous “failure” that was EXIT, I tried my hand at lasercutting acrylic (and also bookboard!), and had completed what I set out to. I gave shape to an action I’d long sat with: the chewing of my brain’s processing of thoughts–a perpetual mastication of mental material.

The brain protruding from its nest of gnawed shavings unfolds like a boardgame. The mouth of the box hungers for substance–anything to stop its sharp teeth nibbling at the pink matter nestled within.

Almost a year later I would create Productive Brainstorming Session, and it would be yet another year before I would realize they were the same piece dressed in different clothes.