Where to begin.
At the beginning of February, I travelled to Georgia to begin work at the Newnan Art Rez. My residency revolved around wooden molds from the RD Cole manufacturing company.
Each one was between 70-160 yrs old, all hand crafted from local oak and pine. Usually a single person would be in charge of this at the factory.
The first day the head of the rez, the amazing Robert Hancock took me to a nondescript storage bay that contained the molds rescued from the shuttered factory. I went back a few times and pulled things that I thought could form something. It felt like playing legos….a nice treat as an adult.
It took a good day of scrubbing and cleaning them but they were stunning after. Natural patinas from age, delicate hand stamped numbers and letters, and some perfect orange paint decorated many of the surfaces.
I wasnt sure what these would look like so i went in simply with an open mind. Barely any sketching happened. I got some earth toned house paint to go with the dark colors and stains of the pieces. My stye in the last year was very glyph based, so I used that as a jump off point. Most of what I created was small, I’d finish each object in a day or so.
This boombox looking thing became this plant person.
to be continued…