Guide to the Objects

#1: The Wild Ride

The Wild Ride, wall mounted construction 12’ x 8’ x 3’, wasp nest, painted and gilded tarp, child’s cart (c, 1929), metal lath, window frame, blinking red light, wooden box, ivory mouse, animal tooth, wire rod, bra underwires, ping pong ball.   An impression of American History from the Great Crash to the Landing on the Moon.  2006

#2: Indoor Galaxy

Indoor Galaxy, suspended construction 10’ x 10 x 10’,  metal lath and black rubber pipe, 2006

#3: Wild Fire

Wild Fire, mounted gilded lilac branch, 2’ x 2’ x 2’, 2010

#4: Kaddish for Rachel Corrie

Kaddish for Rachel Corrie, oil on canvas, 10’ x 6’, 2006.  I made this painting in tribute to Rachel Corrie a 23 year old American peace activist who was killed March 16, 2003 as she stood in front of an Israeli Defense Force bulldozer and tried to stop it from razing a Palestinian home in Gaza, The bulldozer crushed her.  A play was compiled from her diaries and opened at The Royal Court Theatre in London in April, 2005.  The play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, enjoyed two successful runs in London, but a New York production was stymied by political pressure.  The Diogenes Society subsequently presented a reading of the play at the community church in Elizabethtown. The play eventually opened in New York in October of 2006.  The title of the painting is a reference to these lines from the mourning Kaddish. “ He who makes peace upon the heights, may he make peace upon us and upon all Israel.”

#5: Welcome

Welcome, mountedfront axle from a horse drawn wagon, 6’ x 4’ x 2’,  2013

#6: Big Brother

Big Brother (is watching you), twisted iron seed box hung on modern brackets, 5’ x 5’x 1.5’, 2012

#7: Danger

Danger, mounted construction, 6’ x 4’ x 7’.  twisted silo door, black rubber pipe, 2004

#8: The Phoenix of Wadhams

The Phoenix of Wadhams, Rotating Installation of a Minimally Processed Found Object, 12’ x 20’ rotating area, made from a silo dome and supported on a rotating pedestal made from a tractor axle and a wooden telephone cable spool.  This was the first of the objects, and it happened when my neighbor took his silo down (it had taken on a dangerous lean). I hauled the piece over to my yard and created the newly twisted form I had designed using my tractor.  I then engaged the services of another neighbor to design, craft and install some iron staples to hold the new twisted shape in place. We used the red iron piping from within the silo as internal bracing, and he created an iron bracket that he then attached to a tractor axle.  The contractor who did all the digging and concrete work on my house renovation poured a two ton block of concrete in the ground to act as an anchor and provided a crane to place the creature, precisely balanced, on the turning point.  It worked like a dream.  And a decade later it still rotates in the winds whistling up the valley.  All in all, a formidable display of local engineering skills and cooperative spirit.  The title is a reference to the rebirth of farming in the Boquet valley. Completed 2002

#9: Two Tone Stone Cone

Two Tone Stone Cone 5’ x 12’ diameter, piled stones of varying size. For more information on the Stone Cones see Stone Cone One, below. (under construction)

#10: It SO Happens

It SO Happens, free standing construction, 22’ x 30’ diameter.  This piece was originally made in 2004 but has changed and weathered over the years.  It was conceived as a meditation on the virulence of life.  I was for many years uncomfortable with the idea of multiple universes and a consequent feeling of cheapness.  My liberation was provided eventually by contemplation of the uncertainty principle and its outstanding corollary that there cannot be a perfect vacuum.  The spontaneous creation of matter is therefore required by the impossibility of perfect emptiness (a bizarre conception confirmed by experiment).  My head was turned and I began gratefully to ride the crest of a wave of life ever growing, a liberation encouraged by observing over many years the hectic growth of the grasses and the wild way they wave in the wind.  The decisions inherent in this sculpture are made in the light of this ongoing discovery and are intended to encourage the viewer to take pleasure in the inconsistencies of balance and broken symmetry.  The sculpture is much simpler than it was at first although the ladder is a recent addition and the light at the top still blinks when I turn it on.

#11: Old Boyhood

Old Boyhood, free standing construction, 17’ x 10’ x 12’, grain chute from a harvester, cart wheels, iron pipe, iron seed box, blue glass circle, broken mirror shards, sea shell, animal skull (fox?), ceramic doll, sand, rocks, volunteer plants, gilt.  The piece gets its name from its apparently jaunty, if somewhat arthritic gait, and its sentimental inner life as depicted in the box. It has been often modified but dates from 2006.

#12: Fences

Fences, stacked bed frames, relics of a house fire, 8’ x ‘12’ x 6’,  (under construction)

#13: Chariot

Chariot, free standing construction from welded farm machinery, 12’ x 6’ x 14’. Modified this season and will probably be renamed Applause. The name is merely a fanciful reaction to an abstraction based solely on balance and design. (under construction)

#14: Boquet Bouquet

Boquet Bouquet, 7’ x 5’ x 6’, construction to be assembled around the cornhead to a forage harvester, or Chopper, and also including several red fire extinguishers, red plastic sled, a green compressed air tank, toilet parts, lampshade frame, mop handles, garden hose, blue plastic tarp, gallon jug, toys, and other random objects; a joyful, colorful medley of modern trash imploring us not to worry so much.  (under construction)

#15: Mortgage Crisis

Mortgage Crisis, construction in place and fountain, 14’ x 8’ x 10’, television dish-antenna, disassembled hot tub parts; intended as a fanciful representation of the recent frustration of our American Dream of home ownership. 2013

#16: McCormick Deering Reaper Binder

McCormick Deering Reaper Binder, farm machine, c. 1930.  This piece strongly calls to mind the surrealist paintings of Ives Tanguy, and it is a matter of amazement that it arose from and carried out difficult, practical work.

#17: Three Pipes

Three Pipes, found object, 12’ x 6’ overall diameter,water transmission pipes for the Wadhams dynamo.  This piece is very much in the manner of Richard Serra, the contemporary American sculptor, employing the same materials and creating a related type of dramatic, folded space.  2006

#18: Plowshare

Plowshare, 3’ x 5’ x 3’; an example of the basic tool which opened the continent to modern farming, this one probably dates from the nineteenth century. 2013

#19: Good News Bad News

Good News Bad News, mounted relic of a house fire, minimally gilded, 10” x .5’ x .5’; the good news is nobody died. 2013

#20: Dump/Rake

Dump/Rake, farm machine, c.1920

#21: The Angel of Inerrancy

The Angel of Inerrancy (conveying well-meaning souls to hell), free standing construction, 15’ x 22’ x 8’; large Iron culvert, horse-drawn tedder, wheelbarrow, milk can, black rubber hose, red iron silo pipes, blue glass circles, screens, sand, miscellaneous iron pipes and implements, crystal pitcher, two pumps, timers. When first constructed and installed the Angel rocked intermittently forward and back as water was pumped from the wheelbarrow through the black piping into the milk can, and then after a lengthy pause back again. The rocking movement was intended to convey the long, slow journey of the souls to hell. 2005

#22: The Memory Tree

The Memory Tree, found object; 30’ x 3’ diameter at the ground,  a culvert made of rolled iron, stood on end.  It had, for whatever reason, been partially sliced open and then left to rust on the edge of a field.  The filigree of rust has been gilded.  A monument to memory, public and private, and our attempts to use it and preserve it.  2013

#23: Heron

Heron, found object, bent black iron pipe, 15’, mounted in an iron wheel submerged in the pond, gilded at the tip.  2007

#24: Pond

Pond, a project carried out by the United States Department of the Interior as part of a Fish and Wildlife Restoration Project thanks to the intercession of the Boquet River Association in 1995.

#25: Twistor

Twistor, free standing construction, silo parts and iron pipe, 8’ x 6’ x 7’, 2009

#26: Floating Stone Cone

Floating Stone Cone, floating construction, 7’ above the water line, 10’ diameter; stones mounted on wire lath over a wooden frame on a raft of styrofoam blocks and metal brackets, anchored at the bottom of the pond, 2005

#25: Stone Cone One

Stone Cone One, conical pile of stones. 6’ x 10’ in diameter.  A pile of stones is the oldest and simplest made thing.  It is a pre-tool object requiring only collecting, selecting and stacking, and yet it is capable of carrying out profound and useful functions as for example being a directional marker or a grave. A stone cone is a peculiarly democratic object.  No single stone seems to matter much.  The combination, assembly and placement of the stones create the object.  On the other hand each stone must retain its individuality for the object to be what it is. 
     Making a stone cone float makes us think again.  A floating stone cone is a large, slow joke.  Of course any stone cone is floating, even one on a sea of dirt.                                                   .   The stone cones make historical and geological reference to the larger ancient stone cones nearby named Discovery and Hurricane.  They become part of a family of cones encircling the earth and reaching into the deep past.  2003

About the Art Farm

Crooked Brook Studios was first known as an art farm in connection with the Adirondack Harvest Festival’ Farm Tour in 2005.

When the place was identified as an art farm, it got me thinking about these sculptures as if they were bio-organic eruptions, a conceit encouraged by their leisurely and seasonal growth patterns. 

They are known also as large slow jokes.  They make use of things that retain evidence of having had a previous existence such as wetlands and also our sun composed as it is of the detritus of previous stars.

Credits

Persons & Businesses

who have worked to make the Art Farm what it is:

Noah Cornell

Ray Matteau

Tom Wright

Jim Morse
Jerry Pulsifer
JMar Constrction

Skip Smithson

Scott Feeley
Mike Feeley
Feeley Well-Drilling

Kyle Wrisley
Haulin’ Junk

Schelling McKInley
Arna McKinley
Richard Prime
High Peaks Carpentry

Paul Spooner
Ideal Garage

Dale Evans
D. E. Sitework Plus

Kathryn Cramer

Hannah Looby

Dwayne La Motte

Colden Prime

Nate Allott

Rose Hebrink

Andrew Baker