Amy Newton. Deconstructing Mass Production. 4" X 180"; wire, galvanized metal. Davis, CA; 2012.
This piece evolved in the process of its creation. I began with a box of three dimensional, tear-drop shaped, metal pieces that had some past utilitarian function. I found them discarded in a metal scraps dumpster. I was originally leaving them in their unaltered form and welding them together in a winding, vertical strand. As I was working with these objects I noted that they all had "CHINA" stamped into their sides. At first, I ignored this aspect and was determined to continue forming the piece I had visualized. Then I reached a point in the process where I couldn't ignore the country of origin label on each object any longer. I experimented by prying the edges apart to make a piece flat where the word was. I continued playing with the flattening of these pieces and each one was coming out of it in a completely different form. At this point I still didn't have a plan for the concept of the finalized piece. The concept of deconstructing mass production didn't hit me until the work to change the objects' original forms became monotonous and labor intensive. I was using pliers and sledge hammers to individually deconstruct a mass of uniform objects. They were probably the product of a machine stamping millions of these standardized things into shape. I was exerting myself physically to alter their forms, and each piece became distinct and unreplicable.
