Artifacts

Do the things we collect such as magazines, journals or even post consumer paper products become, or will they become “Artifacts”? This is where I start my process in creating my art. I am interested in making forms that combine materials that are collected by some or discarded by others. In this work I take wood as my material both the post consumer or processed, paper in the form of magazines (National Geographic) and wood either domestic or reclaimed. My current work is influenced by the observation of archeology especially the art from the Andes and Mayan cultures. By looking at the meaning of artifact I found that “Artifacts” are contrasted to natural objects; they are products of human actions. Consequently it is necessary to have a maker or an author. It is the form and material that tell a story of a particular time of the land. By taking paper and combining it with wood I am mending the material into something sacred again. I want people to dwell on the calming nature of the form and the relationships of materials. My work is made up of many layers. One of the most important is that the magazines contain literature in which we cannot access. They tell stories and document the many cultures of our world. Some of the forms have come from looking through the magazine before it became the material for the piece.
-Kevin Burrus