Monkey Business
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ARTIST STATEMENT
I was a kid who drew and painted. My uncle, Richard Bassett was a painter. I loved my uncle and loved watching him work and the smell of oil paint in his studio. I also loved Joseph LeBeau, who gardened for my grandmother, who lived in Northampton, MA. He just enjoyed making things and made wonderful play machines out of discarded lumber, used nails, popsicle sticks, and old paint. He gave these toys, some very big, to all the neighborhood kids.
I graduated from Harvard College and spent three years in the architecture program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Working as a draftsman soon convinced me to do something else. I worked as a carpenter and builder, mostly self-employed, until I retired.
I first thought of working with glass as I looked out a window in a friend’s apartment on West 8th Street in Manhattan. I saw the street. The pavement was full of crushed bits of glass that sparkled in the sun. It was paved not with gold, but with beauty. And what I saw as beautiful was bits of broken bottles.
My art is a response to the world around me and to my awareness of its change during my life. I’m surrounded by affluence and by things. New things in big stores, now almost empty. And discarded old things, many still usable, in the streets. It was so different when I was a child during World War II. Materials were scarce and not wasted. Drinks came in glass bottles that were often re-used. We put the empty milk bottles out and the milk man picked them up. Aluminum was used for weapons and machines, not cans. Scrap metal was saved and collected for the war effort. We had enough food, but there were some things one couldn’t get. Used cooking fat was saved for the war effort. We cleaned our plates. Little was thrown away.
So I grew up at a very different time. We’ve become wasteful. This change is largely a positive change for me. I’m a thrifty person, used to working with my hands, and now I'm surrounded by all sorts of re-usable waste. And I remember Joseph LeBeau. Of course I use this stuff. Of course I make things of recycled materials.
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