Fabrication flotsam studies

I continue to be fascinated by the way remnants and materials from a past project continue to call me back. The ways that I currently work to make a living include freelance fabrication, building/renovation projects for Public Space One, and making objects in my studio shop in Iowa City. The routines around each of these roles are interconnected. I am often pulling scrap from my shop, to repair something at PS1 and vice versa, gathering discarded materials from fabrication or repairs back into my shop...

I think because there is not much division between the ways I work, I feel a kind of relationship to the materials and can live with them in a long-term way. I get curious about them and move them around sometimes for years until I can situate them in a way that draws out the qualities that attracted me to them in the first place. (borrowed from a conversation with Katherine Harvath for the Billboard Creative)

materials like a piece of maple ply that came from a well loved pedestal at Public Space One. The insulated staples were found years ago in Chicago, the paracord and laundry line were remnants from summer 2022 projects in the artists courtyards at Public Space One.

industrial felt and reverb tests

detailed image of industrial needle felt underlayment, with view of maroon coating and matted, recycled, synthetic fibers

The felt is made with recycled synthetic fiber. It is a little under a 1/2” thick, coated/crisp on one side and looser, more apparently tangled on the other. Small flecks of color show up throughout, but mostly it is gray. I’ve been referring to it as industrial felt carpet underlayment, or needle felt underlayment. This material came to me by way of Simparch, who had used it in past projects (see piece with Steve Rowell, http://www.simparch.org/tx-aux-in/, for the TX AUX IN) and was also familiar to me as a sound baffle working on their team in warehouse shop spaces.

I wanted to learn more about the interaction of sound with this material, and so installed it three ways in a reverberant space in Iowa City. I ran a series of tests: clapping, yelling, playing rhythmic spoken-word tracks by Moondog at it, to see what impact the friction-full material was having on the travel of sound waves. The difference was felt : )

6x40 foot, gray, needle felt underlayment wrapping around the corner and onto the floor of a white-walled gallery space.

After all of this, it made sense to try to use this felt as a sound baffle material in the Weinberg/Newton Installation. I thought of it as an experiment and offering for the talks and events that would be programmed by curator Kasia Houlihan and the ACLU in a show about democracy, (see All That Glows In the Dark of Democracy). On the most elemental and personal level, the acts of listening, speaking and being heard, struck me as crucial for a functional democracy. I thought of the canopy of baffles as an intimate space within the gallery, to engage a listener’s nuanced perception of the spoken word.

Special thanks to friends who were instrumental in learning about and sourcing this material: Simparch, Paul Somers, and Heather Parrish
And to Shannon Stratton for a persisting question, “WHY use industrially manufactured felt?” from a grad school critique in 2010.

the teaching shed in progress at Public Space One in Iowa City

The teaching shed has been developed in response to a series of conversations with Public Space One organizers, Kymbyrly Koester, John Engelbrecht and Kalmia Strong.

In May 2021, the conversation began with the prompt to develop a sculpture that would facilitate workshops and other time-based, process-driven work in the Art Gardens at PS1. Site visits, drawing, model making and planning ensued.

Early stages of research for the Teaching Shed led me to the vernacular form of the A-Frame, often a small cabin structure perhaps familiar to folks in the US as a marker of visitor centers in the national parks, as well as a DIY kit house distributed after WW2. The durable, triangular geometry, and DIY and leisure associations of this historic form made the A-frame appealing to re-visit in a public site, and as an inclusive learning space in Iowa City. As building commenced, the sculpture continued to adapt in reaction to the upcycled materials found and offered along the way including salvaged metal roofing, and pine from a downed derecho tree.

The foundation and framing stages of the project hosted two volunteer build events and a drill workshop for folks who were interested in being a part of raising the structure. Many thanks to participants who helped in these build events, including:

Sayuri Sasaki Hemann
Bea Drysdale
Nicholas Cladis
John Engelbrecht
Kalmia Strong
Rae Noble
Adam Bryant
Kymbyrly Koester

Thanks also to the following folks for donating, and helping to process upcycled materials: Kelly Moore, PS1 Board Member and Director of Exhibits at the Children’s Museum for the 1/2 plexi cladding
Andy Dahl, UIowa Arborist, and Dave Brown, UI Landscaping Manager, for sourcing and transporting the downed campus austrian pine
Tim Krauss and Sabrina Keiper at Amana Forestry for milling and kiln drying the austrian pine
John Proeller and Elizabeth Erickson at Tri-Coastal Salvage for the steel paneling on the roof

This project is ongoing and due to finish this fall in Iowa City. If you’re in the area, come and visit, take a workshop inside, or feel free to reach out for a conversation and get nerdy about vernacular building, hgivler@gmail.com.

Support provided by the Iowa Arts Council, a division of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

surface

I finished cutting the masonite word and glued it in between teaching classes. The streaks made from spreading and skimming the glue caught my attention.

on TBIGTBIG (the bigger it gets the bigger it gets)

process image of various “formed” objects in the series I’m calling the bigger it gets the bigger it gets. On the table are cast bronze, copper plated brass, sheet copper, river stones and found hammered metal.

Excerpt from Metal Techniques for Craftsman by Oppi Untracht

on daphne

I press a wooden tool into the clay to make a laurel relief. I pour plaster into this one-off clay mold and it cures into a very thin disc. Every Daphne comes out whole, small accidents around the studio cause the discs to break into fragments- I’ve been into letting that happen and then mending the pieces in a way that is plain and unsystematic.

on portraits

Wooden objects with a river stone make portrait number 9. This is one of many objects in a series I’ve been referring to as portraits. I started this work in 2011.

above a more recent portrait in process. I’m making a wall mounted shelf to hold the box and am thinking about it being possible to open and handle the object.

one more portrait below on a sculpture of a chair.