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| STATUS : COMPLETE |
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| MEMORIAL INFORMATION |
| A memorial to Daniel Quinn, principal character in Auster's City of Glass. Installed in June 2001 the engraved plaque is located on a public bench in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, Scotland. |
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| PROJECT INFORMATION |
| In what can be seen as the start of a series of uncanny coincidences, on the day I began reading Auster's New York Trilogy I took the book to the park to read and sat by complete chance on a bench dedicated to a gentleman by the name of James B. Quinn. |
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| Auster's Quinn character, a private detective, waits daily for his subject, Stillman, on a bench in New York City. As "Hamish" is the Scottish "James", and taking direction from the rest of the plaque name "B. Quinn", I thus decided to "be Quinn" and found the only bench remaining in the same Edinburgh park not yet dedicated, and had it dedicated with my own message - "In memory of Quinn, who watched people." |
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| SELECTED SUPPORTING STUDY |
In a second coincidence, on the same day as the bench discovery and after reading this passage of City of Glass...
When I say the word "umbrella", you see the object in your mind. You see a kind of stick, with collapsible metal spokes on top that form an armature for a waterproof material which, when opened, will protect you from the rain. This last detail is important. Not only is the umbrella a thing, it is a thing that performs a function - in other words, expresses the will of man... my question is this. What happens when a thing no longer performs its function? Is it still the thing, or has it become something else?
... I photographed a broken umbrella on Lady Lawson Street in Edinburgh. |
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| The broken umbrella, which hung in my studio for months after became the central part of a supporting study into the focus of objects in artwork - not only in finding the subject, but the artists role of interpretation of subject. Magritte tackled the problem in his painting Hagel's Holiday, a study to make a glass of water as central focus of a painting. |
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| As his study used an functioning umbrella to accompany his glass of water, I reworked the painting, this time replacing the working umbrella for my broken one. |
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| Visit the plaque in the war memorial garden of Princes Street Gardens West, Edinburgh, Scotland. |
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| STATUS : COMPLETE |
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| MEMORIAL INFORMATION |
| A memorial cairn made of stone from 1,000 year old York Minster stone, dedicated from the New York Trilogy to Henry David Thoreau's Walden, principal character in Auster's Ghosts. Installed in May 2003, the engraved stones are in the permanent collection of the Thoreau Institute at Walden Wood, Concord, Massachusetts. |
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| PROJECT INFORMATION |
| Following the completion of Watching Quinn, I decided to continue my memorials to the Trilogy, and to make three in total, each dedicated to a part of the collected work. I began to collect items and props to recreate the room of Blue, the private detective in Ghosts. At one stage in the story Blue notes that Black (his subject) is reading Thoreau's Walden, and one day while following him on a walk, acquires a copy for himself - the 1942 Walter J. Black Classics Club edition. I too purchased that exact edition as a prop for the room and began to examine it for similarities to Ghosts. |
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| Discovering many similarities between the actions of Thoreau and both Blue and Black, I began, as they did, to document their walks. I took my only consistent"everyday" walk, that of my walk to art college from my apartment, and draw it out from an aerial view. |
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| I took my aerial outline walk and copied it onto tracing paper, and laid it over the first page of Walden. Each word the line cut through, I took note of as my "Walden walk poem". |
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| The resultant poem read:
Alone hands obscure concerning some charitable poor me will
On further research of Walden Woods, and Thoreau's cabin location, I learned that each visitor to the cabin site in Massachusetts added a stone to a cairn by the foundations. Thus, taking stones from my hometown of York, 1,000 year old stone from York Minster to be precise, I broke a piece up into nine pieces and had my "walk poem" engraved onto their surface. |
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| In May 2002, the engraved stone cairn was taken to Walden Woods in Concord, Massachusetts and accepted by request into the permanent collection of Thoreau-related objects at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Wood. |
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| SELECTED SUPPORTING STUDY |
| On returning to the UK I presented my project work at the 2002 Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show. Photographic and video documentation of the trip to Walden Woods was presented in a modern replica of Thoreau's cabin, within my studio. |
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| STATUS : IN PROGRESS |
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| PROPOSED MEMORIAL INFORMATION |
| An engraved paving stone in the shape of a discarded broken umbrella on a Brooklyn Heights sidewalk, New York City. |
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| SUPPORTING STUDIES |
| Since finding the broken umbrella in 2002,I have photographed every discarded broken umbrella I could. |
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They are documented online in my Broken Umbrella Archive. Click here to view the Archive.
In preparation for the final memorial, I am producing a series of multiples in various shapes and sizes. Accompanying the broken umbrella photographs is a Broken Umbrella custom product line designed to highlight the New York Trilogy notion that an umbrella is no longer that when broken, and to bring the image of my umbrellas into the public conscious. Products are currently being designed for the Broken Umbrella Store (click here), featuring such items as the Ceci n'est pas un parapluie pillow. |
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| As a second series of multiples, I have designed a series ofd limited edition Broken Umbrella Memorial Plates. To purchase or for more information, please click here or click the plate below to see the current selection. |
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| I am also actively seeking stories about umbrellas from owners. I have never owned my own umbrella, and I am appealing for your stories and experiences. If you have a great story about your own personal umbrella(s), please contact me and I can send you a submission postcard, complete with customized limited-edition Broken Umbrella stamps. |
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| Creating a disposable multiple lead me to devise The Broken Umbrella Cocktail, soon to be available at MercBar in downtown Manhattan. |
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| The cocktail consists of three principal ingredients, each symbolizing different elements of this chapter: The umbrella is represented by Amazonian rainforest Acai berry juice; it is broken by the addition of vanilla vodka; and finally my seduction of the broken umbrella image is represented by a mixture of Godiva chocolate and creme de cocoa. |
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| Above, The cocktail was designed by MercBar mixologist Beth Bardin. It will be available soon. Watch this space. |
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More to come soon. In the meantime, check out:
The Broken Umbrella Archive
The Broken Umbrella Store |
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