STATEMENT OF WORK

The car travels 70 miles an hour on Interstate 95 and slowly decreases once road gators are spotted in the pockets between where the asphalt meets the unkept terrain. The tires are foraged around neglected bushes or sprawled across branches on trees, ornamenting wildlife like jewelry. The emergency blinkers are flicked on, the trunk is opened, the tire is inspected to see if sharp steel pokes will scratch, and it is finally coiled with bungee cords to be lugged into the back of the car. Once it enters the studio, the tire is categorized based upon appearance and scale, and is then placed inside respective carts to be further examined before being sourced as a raw material.

A metal that is spirited in experiment, Pewter can be cast and re-liquefied making the process infinite, resilient, resourceful, and returning. Its value is contingent on the intervening of craftsperson’s. Through this fact, the metal understands the value of the artisan and neglects the global spot prices of precious metals entirely. It is undesirable until value is assigned. Through Pewter having no precedent of worth other than the fixed cost of the tin-based alloy ingot, this allows Form to be the greatest construction of appraisal.

The tires are fixed onto a wooden frame, nailed, reformed, and molded to remind it of its structural confidence. With a melting point of around 338-446 degrees F (170-230 degrees C), the pewter only sears the surface of the vulcanized rubber showcasing a myriad of alchemical color changes to the facing of the cast. Wallowing with light, hints of gold, purple, and silver. Impurities rooted on the remnants of tires are slagged upon contact with the pewter tracing the action of the object. The molten pewter drains along the grooves and sipes following the momentum of the reconstructed wheel until the lulled metal is ferociously drilled apart from the mold, unveiling the patterning of the tread. In the same manner as columns fringing doorways, arches crowning beams or carvings of zigzags/animal faces/zodiacs encrusting a wall, the fragmented tire casts call forth embellishing elements hailing medieval architecture.

Directional tires from semi-trucks hold more pewter and can cast a singular line to create a free-standing armature. Tires from sedans caress in between tires from larger trucks to create the ideal mold to coronate a seamless, full tire. If pewter is poured in between the underbelly of a tire, the sidewalls prevent spillage and reveals fragments that mimic plates of armor. The armature from the directional tires is then torqued on a complete tire to create a crescent, and the plates are paneled with pewter nails to hover the floor. Gleaming gold in the light, the casts command reverence.

Pewter is comprised of 85-95% tin (with the remainder consisting of copper, antimony, bismuth and less commonly today, lead) allowing it to be compressed, stretched, and bent into almost any desired shape. It is a metal that is somewhat softer than bronze or brass and can be cut with a sharp-edged tool with ease, lacking any strength to serve strictly as a structural stability. Understanding its resemblance to silver, much of pewter was used in colonial America in the form of dishes, tankards, wine cups, badges, buttons, candlesticks, spoons and so forth to symbolize wealth.

Strips of tires are simultaneously used as rims to catch overflow and border a perimeter to enclose a shape on its plane. The tires are paneled and screwed with the interior facing upwards, and the first pour of pewter slips between the crevices where tire meets another tire; building a support system to maintain its final and expected weight. The cast is excavated from the sawdust produced from dismantling the particle board base and actual screws are blurred with the cast of screws, alluding to its structure. The cast is propped upright, shielding the wall, and the base sags low being crushed by its own weight, triumphant.

Through titles, the collection of Pewter works is placed in the landscape of medieval times, laid to rest in the myth of Avalon. The still sculptures are returned, extended on the ground of the horizontal plane creating a revised landscape, referential to the found tires. They creep, and hover with nobility, awaiting or revving down from combat.