Work About Working is a series that examines the ways labor defines and shapes identity. A tool is usually described as something that helps you get the job done, but it is also a metaphor for thought, a placeholder for efficiency, and of course, an insult. To be called a “tool” is to be reduced to function, stripped of conviction, or written off as an idiot. The insult is not far from how labor often operates, flattening people into their roles or outputs. 

The works in this series borrow from that language of usefulness and then twist it. A replicated museum bench, a prosthetic ladder, a corporate office park area rug, a wooden wet floor sign: objects that signal safety, utility, comfort, or productivity are turned sideways, reconfigured, or have their reliability called into question. Wooden vanity plates and cautionary signage push past utility and into futility, using slogans and warnings to perform labor through language, where efficiency and identity collide in ways that are both deadpan and absurd. 

My own position is tangled in this overlap. As an artist working with and around the arts as a fabricator, installer, instructor and artist, professionalism insists on polish and practicality. The reality of my practice is one of parody, repetition, or outright contradiction. These works both acknowledge and mock that gap, because sometimes the best way to answer being reduced to function (or being called an asshole) is to turn the work into an unapologetic object. Work About Working is not about perfection, balance, or equity. It’s a reassessment of the values that underlie how we operate in a world that demands exchange with a critical eye and relentless levity.