The Perch and the Gathering Field (works: 1979 - 2009)

Over the years, an ongoing curiosity of mine that began during play time as a child has turned into an art study that became phases of a lifework.

While exploring the relationship of nature and myself, I would always create a quiet, protected place to retreat into to study the things that I encountered outside, in the “Gathering Field”. This protected place I call the “Perch”; a grounding center that allowed me to more easily engage with the larger world.

Observations from this point took shape into a direction of personal art objects, installations, and environments where design was in the service of art. This direction of art still intrigues me today as much as it did in the 70’s.

This body of work is concerned primarily with one’s usage of the object – exploring the relationship between objects and experience, and especially the concept of providing a grounding center or “perch” for engaging encounters and unexpected experiences.

Earliest works in this period were tables and chairs created for unconventional usage, though at the same time strongly resembling something you would see in nature’s movement.

One of the more important aspects of these pieces were what they DID, such as the bench upholstered in copper to collect heat from the sun, making for a surprisingly warm, engaging encounter.

Secondary direction in this period came from the desire not just to represent movement in the objects, but to actually allow the pieces to move themselves in their usage. Giving choice. Systems of modular flexibility. A bit robotic.

This set of works activates architectural space and transforms their interior through shadow-making artworks. Projected shadows make new psychological spaces for contemplation and meditation in the urban setting or “white box”.

In the late 1980’s I moved to NYC, where interior space is more compact and often used as reclusive private space to step away from the overstimulation of the city. I stopped creating attention-seeking furniture objects since there was simply no room for it, spatially or psychologically.

As my studio space became more confining, I decluttered by stripping the room bare and working on the floor with forms that activated the entire space as an installation. The other available space became the large white boxes of gallery settings, and I started making pieces for that context, exploring the spirit of the space as it came alive through the shadows of the darkness.

Looking at the setting opened up a whole new set of pieces as interplay between objects and architecture – going beyond the sculptural object to explore the spirit of the interior setting, with the goal to make an engaging encounter with architectural space.

Interactive works followed with flowing water reflections, creating morphing shadows with the participants in the space.

The mid 1990’s started a new period for me. Fascinated with movement in general, especially movement caused by wind and water, I was inspired to take my studio outside into that wind and water – creating a portable outdoor studio.

This created a new fascination with the rhythm of venturing into a gathering field collecting data and quickly back into a portable habitat or (Portotat) to process the findings. This now starts my exploration with portable sheltering forms as “perches.”

The Blue Tarp (a semi-Portotat) was the first attempt to construct a portable outdoor lean-to shelter with minimal materials.

When I left my Brooklyn studio to work in the field (Montauk's rocky beach), I needed a day studio that would protect me from extreme weather conditions. My first year of working on the beach was spent studying wind movement, and drawing inspiration from collected drift beach objects. To understand the basics of what I needed to be able to work at the beach, I made studies and models until the Blue Tarp structure came about.

For the next three years I used this counterweighted blue tarp construction as a base for further beach-related projects until the focus of my projects changed and required a more portable shelter to set up quickly in a range of locations for wintertime exploration.

The Summer (Green) Portotat, using the same principles of the Blue Tarp as a partially enclosed, semi-protected, large, covered workspace, was designed to be quickly assembled and disassembled as a freestanding structure that can be placed in challenging locations.

This Portotat could cling to rocky cliffs or be set up on a tideline at the location of study. The possibility to set this structure up in such obscure locations was not just for the glamor of it, but to allow the researcher the quick access to explore more locations than they would be able to otherwise.

These solo portotats still surprise me with their versatility in bringing outside inward.

Social & Clustering Portotats were two closely related developments along this thread when I realized I would like to invite others to experience what I have experienced using the Solo Portotat.

Clustering private Portotats for larger groups of people enables others to share a gathering field. This leads to engaging social interaction and the exchange of experiences within a nature/paradise setting. When physically creating this, I realized my focus of interest had shifted from solo (private) investigations to social (group) projects. The dynamics became much more complex and created a new type of environmental stimuli for me.

Inviting a group for three days or a week to a protected space to create in, within a powerfully-charged setting, was much different than one day out in the field. The greater the time on site, the greater the opportunity for changing one’s expectations and having more time to digest new work and experiences. Inviting one traveling group of friends was much different than inviting individual friends who were coming at different or overlapping times, thereby always changing the communal environment. These two scenarios create very different social dynamics – and this became very interesting to me.

To leave our comfortable urban studio for a primitive nature studio takes a lot of flexibility and adjustment on-site (even after the trip) and is perhaps not recommended for everyone, but this clustering became the definition of a Worklodge, and a prototype for a more sophisticated long-term urban version.

The Worklodge clusters Solotats – a warm, cozy living area and a cool, ready-to-work white wallspace area – as a tool, ready to go when needed. They provide a base of a work-live studio as a place of focus through design that supports a lodger’s lifestyle, offering ease of use and flexibility that can maximize creative output. It is a hub that evolves over time, a space that’s designed to change with the people who inhabit it, like a flexible grid morphing to fit the dialogue taking place within.

The New York Worklodge was a building housing eight private work-live studio lofts to create in within a powerfully-charged city. Visitors were able to gather local stimuli and compare their knowledge and known methods from another location and perspective in a habitat for social interaction and exchange with colleagues.

The Lodge becomes a tool system in itself, which is ready to be adapted to new locations.

These centers for globally-mobile creative professionals are designed as an architectural “tool” for enhancing the lifework of these individuals while they live and work on-site during their short-term, repeated visits. Worklodges are people-charged buildings placed in culturally stimulating cities throughout the world.

Following the thread, the next important shift will happen when multiple Worklodges connect into a circuit, in cities like New York, Berlin, Istanbul, Rio, Beijing, Mumbai, and Melbourne. Creating multiplied dynamics of social movement, cultural art understandings, and exchange leads to a healthier global paradigm and a possible deeper understanding of oneself.