CURRENT PROJECTS
Shape No. 19 at the Vanha Kaivos, overhead view.
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Linocut illustration of shape No. 19 (test print).
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SHAPES
Printing now in progress, book will be 9-1/4" x 7-1/2" with 25 pages of illustration followed by interpretive texts
SHAPES documents 74 reinforced concrete shapes lining both sides of a railroad trench between the concentration plant and copper ore concentrate storage structures at the Old Mine (Vanha Kaivos) in Outokumpu, Finland. Over time, ore dust accumulated on the surface of the shapes, changing their color to match that of the copper ore. As this ore-shaded concrete weathered and spalled away it revealed clean gray concrete beneath creating new, secondary shapes on the upper surface of the primary shapes.This book work conceptualizes the secondary shapes’ formation process as a collaboration between industry and nature. The cast concrete primary shapes were created to serve industrial purposes (loading ore concentrate into train cars), and the dust accretion was the product of years of ore processing activity at the mine. Natural forces weathered the ore-colored surface to create the secondary shapes.
Printing now in progress, book will be 9-1/4" x 7-1/2" with 25 pages of illustration followed by interpretive texts
SHAPES documents 74 reinforced concrete shapes lining both sides of a railroad trench between the concentration plant and copper ore concentrate storage structures at the Old Mine (Vanha Kaivos) in Outokumpu, Finland. Over time, ore dust accumulated on the surface of the shapes, changing their color to match that of the copper ore. As this ore-shaded concrete weathered and spalled away it revealed clean gray concrete beneath creating new, secondary shapes on the upper surface of the primary shapes.This book work conceptualizes the secondary shapes’ formation process as a collaboration between industry and nature. The cast concrete primary shapes were created to serve industrial purposes (loading ore concentrate into train cars), and the dust accretion was the product of years of ore processing activity at the mine. Natural forces weathered the ore-colored surface to create the secondary shapes.
Test prints of linocut illustrations on exhibit in the conveyor hall at the Vanha Kaivos, Sept./Oct. 2025.
Test print on the Vandercook No. 4.
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Reinforced concrete shapes at the Vanha Kaivos.
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KEARSARGE No. 4 POOR ROCK (working title)
2022, 12-1/4" x 5-1/2", accordion fold with 10 illustrated panels (dimensions and structure subject to change)
In 1956, the Calumet & Hecla Consolidated Copper Company's surveyors measured the waste rock piles at several of its mine shafts in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, calculating the tonnage of the rock with the idea of extracting copper from it using improved ore processing technology that was not available when the rock was deposited as waste during the course of mine operations. In 1956, the Kearsarge No. 4 mine's rock pile towered over scrub trees and formed a peninsula extending into the swamp outside the town of Copper City. The rock came from shaft sinking and drift cutting and other mining activity occurring outside of the copper vein. The miners called it "poor rock" because it held so little copper in comparison to the rock from the vein. Kearsarge No. 4 poor rock pile is gone now, crushed and hauled off for purposes other than extracting copper from it. All that's left is a berm of rock tracing the edge of the peninsula and the shapes the surveyors drew in 1956. Kearsarge No. 4 Poor Rock uses those shapes, cross sections of the rock pile rationalized and abstracted into straight lines, as the starting point for a set of illustrations and an inquiry into the nature/culture divide, labor, and geomorphological change as reflected in the extant and vanished waste piles from past mining activity in the Keweenaw Peninsula.
2022, 12-1/4" x 5-1/2", accordion fold with 10 illustrated panels (dimensions and structure subject to change)
In 1956, the Calumet & Hecla Consolidated Copper Company's surveyors measured the waste rock piles at several of its mine shafts in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, calculating the tonnage of the rock with the idea of extracting copper from it using improved ore processing technology that was not available when the rock was deposited as waste during the course of mine operations. In 1956, the Kearsarge No. 4 mine's rock pile towered over scrub trees and formed a peninsula extending into the swamp outside the town of Copper City. The rock came from shaft sinking and drift cutting and other mining activity occurring outside of the copper vein. The miners called it "poor rock" because it held so little copper in comparison to the rock from the vein. Kearsarge No. 4 poor rock pile is gone now, crushed and hauled off for purposes other than extracting copper from it. All that's left is a berm of rock tracing the edge of the peninsula and the shapes the surveyors drew in 1956. Kearsarge No. 4 Poor Rock uses those shapes, cross sections of the rock pile rationalized and abstracted into straight lines, as the starting point for a set of illustrations and an inquiry into the nature/culture divide, labor, and geomorphological change as reflected in the extant and vanished waste piles from past mining activity in the Keweenaw Peninsula.
