MAKING OBJECTS
&
SHOWING THEM TO THE WORLD
&
SHOWING THEM TO THE WORLD
A quote i admire.
"Being an artist doesn't take much,
just everything you got.
Which means,
of course,
that as the process is giving you life,
it is also bringing you closer to death.
But it's no big deal.
They are one and the same and cannot be avoided or denied.
So when I totally embrace this process, this life/death,
and abandon myself to it,
I transcend all this meaningless gibberish and hang out with the gods.
It seems to me that that is worth the price of admission. "
– Hubert Selby, Jr.
I have been around art and craft since I was a born. My mother dropped out of college to have me, but she never stopped making things. Her first shows were at the house, thrown ceramic pieces set up on pedestals in the living and dinning room. She would fold brochures with a time and address, my brother and I folded them starting at about age 3, and put them in doorknob bags and we would go house to house and place them on people’s front doors. On those weekends our house would be flooded with potential art patrons. As my brother and I grew, so did Mom’s business. Instead of summer vacation, we went to craft shows all over the eastern U.S. Eventually her business grew into using glass from a furnace. This is when I got really interested. Hanging out with the glass workers was what I did when I got home from school, and eventually I was making hot glass elements for her production at the tender age of 13. I make work for the love of making it, growing up in a production studio made me appreciate the process more than the finished product. I am not interested in mass-producing my work. Rather, creating, with an individual, something they want to live with, and their children and children’s children will love. I want to use my skills to create something people find wonderful. I prefer to address each situation as an opportunity to deliver to a unique object or installation.
–Thom McMahon
"Being an artist doesn't take much,
just everything you got.
Which means,
of course,
that as the process is giving you life,
it is also bringing you closer to death.
But it's no big deal.
They are one and the same and cannot be avoided or denied.
So when I totally embrace this process, this life/death,
and abandon myself to it,
I transcend all this meaningless gibberish and hang out with the gods.
It seems to me that that is worth the price of admission. "
– Hubert Selby, Jr.
I have been around art and craft since I was a born. My mother dropped out of college to have me, but she never stopped making things. Her first shows were at the house, thrown ceramic pieces set up on pedestals in the living and dinning room. She would fold brochures with a time and address, my brother and I folded them starting at about age 3, and put them in doorknob bags and we would go house to house and place them on people’s front doors. On those weekends our house would be flooded with potential art patrons. As my brother and I grew, so did Mom’s business. Instead of summer vacation, we went to craft shows all over the eastern U.S. Eventually her business grew into using glass from a furnace. This is when I got really interested. Hanging out with the glass workers was what I did when I got home from school, and eventually I was making hot glass elements for her production at the tender age of 13. I make work for the love of making it, growing up in a production studio made me appreciate the process more than the finished product. I am not interested in mass-producing my work. Rather, creating, with an individual, something they want to live with, and their children and children’s children will love. I want to use my skills to create something people find wonderful. I prefer to address each situation as an opportunity to deliver to a unique object or installation.
–Thom McMahon