Yes, I still want to
dress the world... I get interested in the interconnectedness of things...
uncovering the architectural underpinning of all objects. My
early investigations of this theme began after a trip to Asia in the
late 1970's. Because of my interest in the sculptural and architectural
aspects of jewelry, I was impressed by the connection between the
way that people there adorned themselves and the way that they decorated
their buildings. That jewelry can be more architectural than
buildings. Consequently, the bland urban boxes of Seattle began
to look like 'skeletons waiting to be dressed.'
As a critic of the city
I am both unsparing and benevolent. My photographs and photomontages
of urban architecture consistently balance my disappointment at the
banality of most urban environments in the United States with my unflaggingly
romantic view of the city as a monumental, mythical place.
City as a Tabletop (1983) was a way of 'doing voodoo' on these
buildings. Towers became teapots or tall drink glasses, or they
were draped with tablecloths. I also started decorating buildings
with jewelry, a theme expressed in Building Jewelry (1988).
Here I pointed out the parallels between the modular, segmented quality
of the average skyscraper and that of the average rhinestone bracelet,
but where the formers' genesis is humorless and profit-driven, the
latter's is sensual and pleasure-driven.
