COMMUNION

2010
Masonite, baltic birch, cedar, MDF, thesaurus, yarn, branch, paint
72 x 30 x 28 inches

Language has enabled us to transcend our internal isolation.  We have found a way to describe, with words, the intangible feelings that we have.  Inflection, tone and pace are all technologies of the self that one develops to help express what they feel.   Through association, we try to understand by correlating input with the things that we think we know.  This proverbial wiggle room of relative understanding is, to some extent, what defines us as human.  

The form of this piece depicts the size of a human, or a small dwelling for a human.  The form is made of fence, depicting ones internal isolation. The rise in the form creates room for a person inside to utilize the ‘desk’ while kneeling. The desk has been made with several ergonomic functions in mind.  There is space for writing, a perch for a bird, a spool of thread and book holder. The desk and tablet is for one to write messages. They are small. This is to reiterate the small scale of a word until it is perceived and processed by another.  The bird and the spool depict the means of moving that message directly to another;  a conversation with spoken words, a letter written, a digital message.  These all demonstrate how a thought needs an action to be realized outside of one’s head. the bird, as a messenger, shows how that thought will travel some distance, whether it’s across the globe or from the tip of your pen to a piece of paper. The thesaurus to depict associative understanding, how one organizes associations in the mind, and calls them up to try and ‘understand.’ It is there for reference.