Sticky Finger Sculptor (WE TRANSFER /// PRIVATE PAGE)

Sticky Finger Sculptor

I have been collecting my family’s scraps for over 25 years but I have to admit, I also steal some too.

I make tiny sculptures, tributes to mundane objects from these materials. Most of these scraps (tax records from the 1970s, rusty nail boxes, electric bills, staplers, and empty gift boxes) have been in our family for generations. I consider them my inheritance. But often I find myself coveting the scraps of others and I convince myself I can give their detritus a better life:

• The toy BINGO game with fancy red plastic windows (lifted from a family function at the local elementary school).

• Dusty electrical tape (nobody needs three rolls) and a lightbulb box (the bulb probably didn’t even work) from a neighbor's garage.

• An incomplete deck of cards, hair pins and a broken wooden ruler (that had been in a relative’s junk drawer for as long as I can remember).

• A very worn bible from a (not-so-fancy) hotel room.

• Handfuls of miscellaneous rubber bands, paper clips and dried out erasers from any office conference room (I have been left waiting in).

All of these materials are carefully strewn, stacked and piled in my studio so I can easily sift through (like an archeologist) to uncover just the right elements that I can collage and sculpt together. As the materials gets ripped and bent the final piece is messy and imperfect, just like our memories.