Making the Objects

From the very start of this project, the intent was to create a series of objects that would simulate the way a killed beast would be used by hunters in a primal culture. I say simulation for a couple of reasons. First, as I come from my own culture...a highly 'civilized' one at that...I am of course not going to be able to produce objects exactly like those of a primal man. Second and most importantly, I was not using a beast, I was using a 1990 Chevy Lumina. Common sense will tell you that the materials of a car are quite different from those of a large beast.


So in the actual making of my objects, I had a hard time figuring out where to start. From all the time I spent planning I had a fairly good idea of what I wanted to make, and some thoughts on what I wanted to make them out of. I chose certain types of objects to make based not only on what I felt I would need to survive were I a primal man but also based on conscious and unconscious ideas about what a car is and what type of role it fulfills for people.


There were three types of objects that I made for this project; survival objects, ritual objects and luxury objects. The survival objects was composed of a series of tools and weapons that would be necessary to have including a bow and arrow, knives and axes. These were important to include because one of the roles a car plays in our culture is that of an important survival object. In many places around this country, if one did not have a car it would seriously limit their ability to get to work, earn money and purchase the things they need to survive.

Connected with their use as a survival object, cars are quite often also objects of ritual. I get in mine and drive it where I have to go. Once a week I put gas in to feed it. Once every 3000 miles I change its oil and rotate its tires. There are more rituals associated with cars that help to keep the car gods appeased and your car running but mentioning them all would take too much time. Our cars are objects of ritual and as such I performed many rituals as well as produced several ritual objects including ceremonial garb, masks and musical instruments.

Cars are also objects of luxury. Stretched Limousines as well as other high end automobiles have become icons of wealth and luxury spending. The most well off of this societies members have more cars and cars of higher luxuriousness than those people with a moderate income. This being the case, it was only natural for me to use parts from the car to produce a series of luxury objects including jewelry and a throne.


When it came time to actually make these objects, I spent a lot of time looking through the parts I had brought to the studio and thinking about what they could be. I found some parts and began visualizing. I also found parts that just simply looked interesting to me in and of themselves. I believe that the making of these objects went so smoothly because I had spent so long thinking about what I wanted to make, and the overall aesthetic I was going for.

I began to see the things I wanted to make within the parts themselves. Gathering my tools I started to work on the construction of my objects beginning in June, only three months before the opening reception. During this time, my studio space was an incredible mess. The mess spread out into the rest of the studio and to my apartment. I was constantly working on something during this phase of the project.

Below are a few in progress shots of some a couple of the objects I made.

This was the hat created for the ceremonial outfit displayed in the thesis exhibit. In order to create it, I simply removed a piece of felt from the door pane and sewed a seam to produce the cone shape. It took a while of contemplating the shape of the piece of felt before I realized the best way to sew it. Once I figured it out I simply turned it inside out and sewed up the seam. It took some time, but once I was finished, the result was exactly what I was looking for.

This was a ceremonial rattle that I produced. The making of the rattle itself was the easy part. I simply removed this part from car (I believe it was part of the radiator) filled it with glass pieces from the windshield and stopped up both ends. What took the longest was the carving of all the designs on the rattle head...It took about a week of carving for 3 or 4 hours a night to get it finished.