Workbench
When my dad passed away many years ago, I found myself with debilitating grief for over six years. With a lot of help from friends I was able to work through the pain of losing him. So years later, when I began to catalog all his tools and actually had them in my hands again, I was instantly transported back to when I was a kid - back when my dad and I spent a lot of time together in the basement/wood shop.
Those sure were sweet times.
We'd listen to Herb Alpert records on the huge wooden HiFi, and I'd happily watch him work with his hands and make things. Slowly he taught me how to build plastic and wooden model airplanes, then bigger projects came along. We got along great back then, in the basement. Later on we would furiously butt heads like some fathers and sons do. But as I've gotten older I slowly realized that our time in the basement has become more precious, because he was so much more patient with me in the wood shop, earnestly teaching me the proper way to hold various types of hammers, screw drivers, files and chisels or how to start a cut in a new piece of wood with his beautiful old back saw he received from his father.
So after I unboxed all his tools and began laying them out a few years ago, I quickly realized that the more I held them in my hands the better I felt. So one night almost without realizing it, I had made the first image in the series by just playing with 30-40 extra Allen wrenches my dad had collected over the years and laying them out in a pattern which ended up reminding me of when he tried to explain aspect ratios to me as a kid. It was kind of healing in a way to make these images, but mostly it felt damned good to have his tools in my hands which let me plug back in to those tender moments in the shop when I was just a kid. After I made the first image, I just kind of kept going, making these "assemblages" of his well worn tools and feeling his patient, loving teaching spirit again.
The 34 images in this series were made between 2012 and 2017 and are printed in one size with archival ink on Hahnemuhle paper - edition of 5 + 2 artist's proofs.
*Please contact the studio for pricing and edition information.