The vernacular of function and skill is a catalyst for this work. My admiration for tools, machines, and other functional objects prompted a necessary redefinition of the concept of “skill” and its diverse habitats. My latest body of work, The Tool Series, explores the definitions of skill and the ways it can be manifested through material. Using the simple vocabulary of a hammer- steel head and wooden handle- I am approaching various ways of exploring skill and its place in our society. In the piece “Two Handles”, the social activity of skill being passed from one individual to another was at the forefront of my definition- refering subsequently to the relationship between parent and child, master and apprentice, and so on. While in more subverted ways, confronting the duality of ability and disability contributes to the broader concept of skill. In earlier pieces such as “Cooling Fins”, I created an object of ambiguous function with a fictional narrative; I invented a tool and an implied non-specific purpose.

I have restricted all of the tools I create to a relationship with the hand, that of the potential user and that of the viewer, in doing so I can confine the definition of skill to the body. By controlling evidence of use, such as a worn handle or a hammer face with dents and dings, I find that the function of these objects becomes a strange thing cradled and lamented by my fascination with their dysfunction, and skill becomes a story about the human body.