LAWN JOBS \ FLATLAND \ CIVIL TWILIGHT \ IMPOSSIBLE NEUTRAL \ FRACTURE UTOPIA \
STACK AND SPRAWL \ PEOPLE PAINT \ CHANGING LANDSCAPE \ HOUSE AND HOME \
OREO \ A TIRO' DE \ LE MONDE DE L'ART \

	LAWN JOBS, 2009-ONGOING. ARTIFICIAL TURF ON MAPLE PLYWOOD, DIMENSIONS VARIABLE.

Lawn Jobs continues my investigation of visual pheonema, employed as comment on both cultural and social perceptions. The title of this ongoing series is a reference to yard work, as well as to the slang term for driving a car through someone's lawn. The former is most often done as an exercise in maintenance, beautification, or improvement, while the latter is typically done with the intent to deface property, or as an act of defiance. Lawn Jobs is part of a larger body of work entitled Domestique which chronicles my four year experience as a male "house-spouse" in the suburban midwest.

The patterns are created by alternating the grain direction of the artificial turf. When the grass blades bend away from the light source, a lighter value is produced. When the blades bend into the light, the overall value appears darker. This is due to the relative reflection or absorption of light across the surface. The same concept is used to produce the striping patterns found on lawns and athletic fields across the US, where mowers outfitted with rollers are used to bend the blades of grass.

I began playing with striping patterns in my own yard as a way of combating the bordome of my weekly house chores. This eventually lead to an investigation into the origins of the American lawn, it's aesthetics, and of the effects this landscape has on our social and enviorimental interactions. For one year, I charting each mowing, included a map of the pattern used along with notes chronicaling pests encountered, weeds combated, and moles killed.

The project eventually spread into the studio where it developed into a more focused exploration of decoration and pattering as it related to both domesticity and the ideals of middle America. The designs are derived from my own yard-working experiences as well as from other areas of interest in popular and scientific culture. Some, such as Deere John, are based on quilt patterns, while others emerge from research in other fields. All are used to draw attention to the tensions manifest in the lawn as both a physical and psychic place [a public space/a private place] and to question the cultural norms symbolized therin.

Titles- Slide 1 (left to right): Radiant Dream, Heaven, Deere John (mean-eyed cat), Cubic Yard. Slide 7: Amber Waves