Marc Blumthal

An artist’s name is inherently linked to the beautifully handcrafted sculptures, vessels, and objects that line the gallery, store, and Permanent Collection of The Center for Art in Wood. As an artist interested in authorship, I was most interested in working with the pieces from the John Grass Wood Turning Company archive. Objects within this archive were made by artisans working under the tutelage of an institution, where the name of a maker becomes dissociated from the object. I was particularly interested in objects that suggest a potential action, such as the Billy Club, which has been used as a vehicle for violence, control, and the marginalization of devalued communities.

In my installation, I have removed the Billy Club from it’s pedestal and replaced it with a surveillance camera within a mirrored enclosure, to implicate a viewer as a witness to the occupying force of the object’s function as something to adorn, hold, flatten, split, strike/hit, brace, and control.