Port Angeles Fine Art Center // Webster's Woods Sculpture Garden // New Growth Exhibition 

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"As I approach the topic of “New Growth,” I can’t help but focus on what builds and fosters it. The beauty of a flower is only appreciated after the work of the soil, the rain, and the sun. The working class is just that in society, and their labor develops the new growth that holds this world together. Everywhere we turn there are products of unseen labor, workers providing services, and people struggling to make ends meet on unfair minimum wages. To focus on the working classes essential role in societal growth, I’ve decided to continue my investigation into the symbolic nature of found objects. I have found local beaten down, used and weathered tools that reflect and consider the history of the working class in Port Angeles. It’s important for me to reflect on the saw, paper and lumber mills that produced the working class in the late 19th century.

 

The artwork will then consist of multiple found tools such as shovels, old hand saws and dull sheers. These tools will look as if cutting through, dug into, or piercing the ground, which will be a gesture towards the labor conducted by the workers of the saw and paper mills. It also calls to the industrialization of natural materials and how these materials are exploited for capital gain. Surrealism plays a major role in the artwork, as the tools will be seemingly unstable and in odd positions but will ultimately be stabilized underneath the surface. I will do my best to spread the tools throughout the sculpture park as it represents the working class being in every facet of life. As the viewers experience each tool separately, a larger picture is painted as the tools become part of a team effort in providing new growth and a better future for the working class."