When considering the SCREW, do not just consider it literally a screw. They are pieces of
a greater whole. Screws, washers, bolts, lug nuts, jackhammer heads, what looks to be just rust,
all of these things I would consider SCREWS. There's a specific intrigue that comes with finding
a SCREW, a cool metal object, and the compulsion to pick it up and collect it is what makes it a
SCREW. But a very important question remains...
RAGE, 18” BY 24”, SCREENPRINT
JOY, 18” BY 24”, SCREENPRINT
WOE, 18” BY 24”, SCREENPRINT
RUSTED GARDEN, 18” BY 24”, SCREENPRINT
SCREW GARDEN, 4” BY 8”, SCREENPRINT
From trucks, construction, hub caps, I’ve even found them on the light rail’s tracks, which would be concerning if not for prior knowledge of Baltimore’s crumbling infrastructure. Simply put, it makes sense why the SCREW exists, but the expanse of them is almost impossible to wrap my mind around.
Like people, they have their own background, and they often exist disconnected from their pupose. If not for being picked up and put into my collection, they would have been left to the roads, destined to flow down drains to the bay. The labor and human hand that exists in creating these objects is frequently forgotten.
JEAN LOVERS, 9” BY 23”, SCREENPRINT ON HANDMADE JEAN PAPER
CRANE CITY, 5” BY 11”,
LINO ON HANDMADE PAPER
LINO ON HANDMADE PAPER
SCREWED UP HEART, 11” BY 17”, SCREENPRINT
The metals that form a SCREW have had to been collected, fabricated in s factory, then transported on roads that are also maintained by the invisible hand of labor.
SCREW HEAVEN, 11” BY 29”, WOODCUT
The world we live in is filled with these objects crafted with purpose, and yet they are still discarded. Our concrete ecosystems do not just magically exist, even though often we do not give them any thought.
I realized how little I think of them when finding a seemingly very heavy and important-looking bolt by the light rail.
After that I couldn’t stop seeing SCREWS everywhere, my eyes were glued to the pavement, always seeing behind the infrastructure to the hours of work and maintenance that it took to build my surroundings.
The searching helped me take my mind off the state of the world, my life, and let me walk from place to place forgetting the larger world, but soon I found myself right back where I began, unable to escape the imposing structures around me and what they represent.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEW, 5” BY 29”, WOODCUT
SCREW JUMBLE, 10” BY 15”, COPPER PLATE
SCREW KNIGHTS, 9” BY 11”, LITHO
TIMES ARROW, 5” BY 7”, COPPER PLATE
INDUSTRIAL BODY, 18” BY 29”, WOODCUT
BLUE COLLAR, 18” BY 10”, WOODCUT
Separated from their original functions,
these objects persist, even after losing a part of themselves, they endure beyond their initial
purpose. They are fragments representative of the human work behind them, and it is important
we don’t forget that every screw was created by and for people with their own purposes. If we
forget the SCREWS that hold our city together, how can we expect it to stay structurally sound?
How can we expect to treat our people with humanity, if we forget the people even exist?
DRAINS TO THE BAY, 2’ BY 4’, WOODCUT
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