Walden Woods points to a romantic perception of nature and to the
misapplication of Emerson and Thoreau's ideas of identity as an endorsement of  radical self-centered world views. The artwork is intended as the touchstone of this exhibition, pointing up parallels between American individualism and isolationism.  An often-applauded aspect of the American character has been the perceived righteousness of the self-reliant individual roughing it, toughing it, and longing it.
• fabric, cnc-cut supporting ribs
• 9'6" x 8' diameter
• 2012

Glass-tiled bowl, RP object, faux gold leaf
14” x 14” x 3”
2012

Carved foam, resin, glass cloth, pigments, faux gold leaf
 44” x 24” x 17 “
2012

Carved foam, resin, glass cloth, carbon fiber, pigments, faux gold leaf
47” x 48” x 48”
2012

Carved foam, resin, glass cloth, wood, carbon fiber, pigment, faux gold leaf
52” x 48” diameter
2012

Carved foam, resin, glass cloth, carbon fiber, pigments, faux gold leaf
4 feet x 5 feet x 5 feet
2012

My EMF Comfort Zone  is a prototypical sleeping/meditating retreat, developed from an optical scan of the user's head to be used inside the home. In this case, the user is myself. The work is an idiosyncratic gesture of self-protection, meant as a protecting inner liner, the last level of defense, a shell within a shell. 
 The copper-plated fabric used here was developed for shielding electronic equipment from electromagnetic field (EMF) energy accompanying electrical devices. The material, form, and functions of future Comfort Zone Head-tents will be determined in collaboration with the individual for whom the tent is developed.
• Copper plated polyester, carbon fiber, aluminum
• 5’2” x 7’10” x 6’10”
• 2009

The wearer of this coat is offered self-value, confidence, and contentment given the coat's protection of the wearer.
• fabric, silicone, wooded valet stand
• 5'6" H x 2'2" W 1'8" D
• 2011

 Romance with an American Loner is intended as a participant in the de-romanticizing of the rural survivalist and the cultural loner. Eric Rudolph is most well known as the perpetrator of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta that occurred during the 1996 Summer Olympics, killing Alice Hawthorne and wounding 111 others. Rudolph has also confessed to the bombings of an abortion clinic in the Atlanta suburb in 1997; the Otherside Lounge, a lesbian bar in Atlanta in 1997; and an abortion clinic in Birmingham in 1998, which killed the security guard and injured a nurse.
 Even though the FBI considered him to be armed and extremely dangerous, and offered a $1 million reward, he spent more than five years in the Appalachian wilderness as a fugitive. Rudolph received the assistance of sympathizers while evading capture and some in the area were vocal in support of him. Two country music songs were written about him and a local top-selling T-shirt read: "Run Rudolph Run." The Anti-Defamation League noted that extremist chatter on the Internet has praised Rudolph as 'a hero' and some followers of hate groups are calling for further acts of violence to be modeled after the bombings he is accused of committing. Rudolph was arrested in Murphy, North Carolina, on May 31, 2003.

• printed paper, chair
• 48'' x 60" x 30"
• 2011

Red Ridinghood Stand is a rejection of Red Riding Hood's passivity. It is a pre-emptive strike; she will not be ambushed.
• painted fiberglass and re-configured metal hunting stand
• 11’ x 9 'x 9'
• 2002

Thomas Jefferson Reconstructed is an image of Rembrandt Peale’s portrait of Jefferson at age 57, altered to mirror the insistence by some Americans that Jefferson publicly supported the Christian religion as a model for the United States of America. (In fact, Jefferson rejected any notion of a state religion or governmental support for religion.)
Other Americans have insisted that Jefferson was a blasphemer for presenting his  version of the New Testament with all "supernatural events" edited out. After completion of the Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, in about 1820, Jefferson shared it with a number of friends, but he never allowed it to be published during his lifetime. The most complete form Jefferson produced was published in1895 by the National Museum in Washington.
 • altered digital image with back-light panel
 • 28” x 22”
 • 2005

This isolated, outer suburban home/farm defensive complex of buildings sets atop a slowly rotating cake stand surrounded by a landscape of translucent silicone berries and guard-swans, exhibiting an extravagant paranoia and self-isolation.
• silicone, polycarbonate, hybrid domestic ducks, swan body/beak polyurethane
forms, motor
• 11’ x 5’6”’ x 6’6”
• 2002

Safe Alone juxtaposes a feeling of enclosure and temporal safety to the growing threat of intrusion. Projected into the interior through the translucent roof is a video of an increasing number of silhouetted visitors pressing together to form a dense crowd on the roof, blotting out the light projected within, while the sounds of the crowd's  restlessness become progressively louder.
The gallery visitor sits alone within the felt-padded house sheathed with pairs of cast graphite fists until the video culminates in a total blackening out of the projection and the entire gallery room.   

• Cast graphite, polycarbonate sheet, felt, aluminum, DVD video, modified wooden chair
• 11’ x 6’ x 5’
• 2002

At least six districts in the Midwestern United States claim to be the "Popcorn Capital of the World". The importance of this tasty treat is enormous, evidenced by its consideration by most Americans as a beloved symbol of wholesome home-life with its friendly aroma and its pop-pop-pop sounds coming from the pot on the stove top or the electric popper. This particular corn is transformed into a golden trophy,
• 14 carat cast gold kernel of popped corn
• 2002

They're Us

10' x 25' x 25' garage

2013

Hollowed log fort and white supremacists' websites within a greenhouse, gardening tools, chainsaw, 360° projection onto greenhouse, and a layered audio loop of lawnmowers circling

Hate groups and individuals see American society as separate, and in a way estranged from themselves; yet they live among us, psychologically if not physically isolated, engaged in quotidian life, while harboring extremist, even violent views. Their self-isolation, coupled with a misapplied romantic perception of nature-as-sanctuary, creates grand illusions.

They're Us

10' x 25' x 25' garage

2013

Hollowed log fort and white supremacists' websites within a greenhouse, gardening tools, chainsaw, 360° projection onto greenhouse, and a layered audio loop of lawnmowers circling

Hate groups and individuals see American society as separate, and in a way estranged from themselves; yet they live among us, psychologically if not physically isolated, engaged in quotidian life, while harboring extremist, even violent views. Their self-isolation, coupled with a misapplied romantic perception of nature-as-sanctuary, creates grand illusions.