Artist Statement

Someone once described me as a global community oriented object maker. This may seem like a contradiction since art objects usually remain rhetorical, however, it is an example of the constant dilemma I face as an artist. I am an artist who, among other things, is interested in global communities and making objects.

Through my object making I want to promote what I call manual interaction: when one must physically work for an object to interact with them. I do not make kinetic or electronic sculpture that does something when you merely walk into a space or come close to touching the object, I make sculpture that makes you work. This includes bike-powered kaleidoscopes, apple dispensers, climbable margarita fountains, high loft spaces, and paper rollers.

Manual interaction has led me to become increasingly aware of our tactile senses. With technology advancing so quickly and becoming smarter and smarter, I feel that the importance of tactile intelligence is being lost. I want to embrace the world where one must know how to turn the knob on the faucet for water to come out, where one must spin a handle for a paper towel to dispense or must learn how to flush the toilet by hand. While it is inevitable that technology is an extremely important factor in economic and social global development, I believe that it is entirely possible for technology to advance while embracing the simplicity of our tactile senses.

So, how do objects and tactile senses relate to global communities? As a globally aware citizen actively involved in the fight to minimize waste, most of the objects I create are made out of reused materials. By collecting waste materials and engaging in creative reuse of materials, I re-purpose materials to function in a new way, giving them a second or third life. The issue of waste in my work also manifests itself in other ways such as: mini-golf courses; journals and wallets; unique social space-building; studies of sustainable function of material; using art and design to promote preserving natural resources; collaborating to design a student run no-waste school café; and developing a program to facilitate community built playgrounds. Just a small facet of how creative thinking can relate to the world, these are just some of the ways that I am addressing our global community.

As my interests and ideas develop, my current thoughts are a moving platform towards increasing positive sustainable change in my work as well as the world.

Here's my newly rearranged and painted studio. Now my endless pile of found materials is filed and organized in lockers and bins and such. Time to mess it up again and start a new project...

Just as with materials, part of my practice as an artist is making use of "dead" or "wasted" space. Some call this re-purposing, others just think I'm a little odd. This loft in my studio is one example of that. First it was a ledge for storage, then I added a ladder and railing, then a floor, then a chair, then a sort of wall, then a bookshelf, then a hammock, now it is the upperworld in my studio, an escape from the craziness of down below.

GROUNDS FOR PLAY....
I have been working on a proposal for a playground building project. I envision this to be set up as a non-profit someday.


GROUNDS FOR PLAY
Creator: Heather Mullins

Timeline: Spring/ Summer 2007, Plan/Research
Fall/Spring 2007/2008, Plan/Research/Design/Secure funding
Summer 2008, Possible implementation of 1st playground

Project Description:
By using sustainable playground technology and reusing otherwise wasted or excess materials from industry or other sources particular to each chosen location in the developing or developed world, I will facilitate the building of playgrounds that promote environmental consciousness and resourcefulness and sustainable social and community development.

This project was developed by realizing the importance of play and the positive sustainable effects it can have on communities within our society. These playgrounds will be community driven efforts, addressing basic and social needs (i.e. water, sanitation, community issues) unique to each location.



Audience/Venue:
Each location for this project will be chosen by three factors: An industry or other source producing excess materials, a specific need and want from the community for a renewable resource or community development project of this type, and a willingness and ability to sustain this project from within the community. Because each playground will be different according to the above factors and its location, the audience will change for each project.

Experimental Approach:
This project is experimental in many ways. Because each project will be different, each playground will require experimental building techniques that pertain to each material, location and its people. Identifying the basic and social needs of the community and realizing whether a playground can address any of these specific needs is an important first step. For example, if a community needs a water source, playground technology (teeter-totters and merry-go-rounds) can serve as water pumps. The teamwork that will be required to build a playground will truly be a community-building experience but the challenge will be how to sustain the relationships realized through the experience of building. An experimental, innovative approach will be needed to assess and overcome these fundamental challenges.

Materials:
Materials will be unique to each playground depending on its location and what discarded materials can be reused. This will involve initial research and assessment of resources in each community.

Ideas:
Doors of laundry machines for windows to look through and open, possibly crawl through
Rubber from discarded tires used for swings of all types.
Pipes could be used as structure as well as kaleidoscopes
Waste/sewage could go into tubes to fertilize soil and make a garden grow at other end

Envisioned Playground Components:
Slides
Swings
Bridges
Ladders, climbable places
Fire-poles
Interactive Toys (tractors, etc.)
Merry-go-round (can serve as water pump)
Teeter Totter (can serve as water pump)
Fort or other small environment
Kaleidoscopes (small and large)

Resources:
Financial resources by way of grants and fellowships will be key to making this project happen.
Art Deadline list http://artdeadlineslist.com

Other than financial resources, finding a team of community facilitators, researchers, designers and builders will be needed as well as and finding materials in the locations where each playground will be built.

Organizations of Influence/ Inspiration:
Architreasures www.architreasures.org
PlayPumps International www.playpumps.org
Rural Studio
Kenya Youth Sponsorship Program
Global Routes www.globalroutes.org
Engineers Without Borders www.ewb-usa.org
Worldchanging www.worldchanging.com
Kaboom Playground builders www.kaboom.org
Progressive Design Playgrounds www.pdplay.com

Context:
This project is directly related to my past experience as an artist and a community worker. Through my art I have built environments with a focus on play and childhood and have more recently been focused on creative reuse, working with the potential of spaces, objects or materials that are otherwise deemed to be useless. As a community worker, I have been involved in various community projects within the U.S. and the developing world.

This project crosses the realms of community building, green design, creative reuse and recycled art and design, art or community work with ecological and environmental awareness, and global engineering.

Design:
The design would be unique for each playground depending upon its variables. Structure, safety, and accessibility would all be taken into account.

Design #1: Water
More than one billion people worldwide do not have access to clean water. In many developing countries women and children walk many miles carrying water to their homes, losing valuable time to study, work or play. Water-related diseases are the leading cause of death in the world, taking the lives of 6,000 people a day, and are responsible for 80 percent of all sickness in the world.
The focus of this design is to provide clean water for the community in closer proximity to its population. It would be built in the central location of a community, possibly at a school. Merry-go-round water pumping technology would be the central point of this playground and other elements would be built around this. This playground would not only serve as the main water source for community members, it would also be a community and social gathering place.

PlayPumps International has been successfully using their merry-go-round water pumps in much of South Africa for the past few years. This technology or something similar would be used in the playground designs.

Design #2: Water/Agriculture
This playground would be built in the central location of a community, possibly at a school. Merry-go-round water pumping technology would be the central point of this playground and other elements would be built around this. A community garden would be built adjacent to the playground and the water pumped from the ground could be used to water this garden. Children could play on the playground while their parents or babysitters worked in the garden. Workshops about agriculture and water could be held here as well.


Design #3: Solar/Wind Energy
This design would also be built in the central location of a community, possibly at a school or park. Swings would be the central point of this playground and other elements would be built around this. The energy from the pendulum motion of swinging would be collected and used for electricity or another source of energy. This design could be used in the developing or developed world. Solar panels would also be installed in various parts of the playground, creating a second source of energy.

I make journals, wallets, computer cases and many other things out of reused materials. Materials include bike inner-tubes, placemats, buttons, zip ties and many other things. I'm constantly studying materials and realizing their capabilities.

Our mini-golf hole at University of Chicago's campus for earthweek. Click on the link to the left to see more of golf course.

My friend Monica and I entered a design competition to build one hole in a putt-putt course at the experimental station in Chicago. The guidelines were that you had to build your hole out of reused materials and also have a life for those materials after the course.
Our proposal is following:
Proposal for the First Annual Experimental Putt-Putt Green Design Competition

As a team of two we are qualified to build a mini-golf course because both of us are enthusiastic sculptors who are always looking for a challenge. We are essentially toy-makers with an interest in human interaction and public space, constantly conceptualizing what meaning we can give to an object or material and what fun thing we can make. As collectors and recyclers, we are consciously aware of the materials we use, always being as resourceful as possible and reusing materials that would otherwise be wasted. With strong, innovative building skills, we both use our intuition to create tools of play including human size instruments, climbable drinking fountains, pinball-like tracks through museums, and tricycle trains. This challenge to design a mini-gold course is an exceptional opportunity for us to test our skills as sculptors and see how innovative we really are. It would be an incredible learning opportunity for both of us and would enhance our graduate educations as sculpture MFA students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Our vision for a mini-golf course includes the use of the leftover stock of Kippenberger astro-turf, discarded bike inner-tubes, shipping pallets, household plumbing appliances, and salvaged pipes of any shape and size, keeping in mind that this list will probably be added to and can be adapted to what materials are available, what the space is like, and where our intuition takes us. Shipping pallets would create slopes and great obstacles by keeping them in their original form or taking out slats and refiguring the wood. The rubber from bike inter-tubes could create a surface that could slow a ball down or be blown up and become a circular obstacle for a golf ball to roll through. Household appliances like sinks, toilets, and water fountains would make for great golf holes and could be piped to make separate passages for different balls. The combination of these materials could make a very exciting and challenging mini-golf course. As far as a life for these materials after the golf-course, the opportunities are endless but here are some examples of what can be made: Out of practice, we know that bike inner-tubes can be used as material for wallets and books or simply cut into rubber-bands. The astroturf can be combined with the rubber and wood to make scrub brushes or can be a sponge or potholder on its own. The pallets and pipes can be combined to make furniture or the pipes could be cut into flower vases. And, lastly, the household appliances can be re-piped and used again for their original function.
Monica Herrera, Heather Mullins

Much of my recent work is comprised of reusing materials. I am constantly studying and coming up with new uses for materials otherwise considered waste. This is a mattress sewn out of plastic grocery bags and filled with my studio mate's paper waste.
Work from Waste Stream Diversions Show, Messhall, Chicago. We rode around on bikes for weeks collecting garbage from alleys and then created works of art. I made an interactive paper roller that people could draw on. It acted as a scroll.

One of my discourses....

My discourse as an artist lies in the never-ending quest of filling the gap that remains between my two halves. Part of me wants to be an artist who is constantly creating, part of me wants to help those in need and have a social connection to the world, and in the middle lies a gap. In order for me to be the best artist that I can be, I must fill this gap. While I am always searching for a way to do this, I am constantly finding interest in the connections we make with what we are surrounded by, waste and wasting, industry and industrial materials, nature and natural materials, shapes, colors, purposeful and not so purposeful objects, and other ordinary things. The relations we have and the actions we take with all of these things are general representations of our society, whether problematic or not. By using these subjects and things in my art is how I strive to be socially conscious and relate to our society. I am striving to make work that sends a subtle message to its viewers. Whether that message is sent in the act of making the work of art or whether it is sent in the product will vary from creation to creation. Through being an artist in society, I want to make creative change that effectively bridges the gap between the two parts of myself and the two parts of the world today: its problems and their solutions.

Heather Mullins
My Discourse

As an artist in today’s society, I have realized it is impossible for me to choose only one discourse. In our ever-changing world with my own ever-changing and developing mind, the only way I can see being effective as an artist is by indulging in several discourses. Sculpture is what I have primarily studied for years and what my specific interest is in. However, through sculpture I will be and want to do many things.
I am a builder, constantly building physical contraptions, structures and environments. By this I do not mean that I build traditional sculpture that stands alone in galleries, I have almost no interest in work that is only meant to be looked at from afar. I am interested in what I call manual interaction. My work will not work for you unless you work for it. I am not interested in making kinetic or electronic sculptures if they interact with you when you give them nothing. So much of the technology today is absolutely incredible but it is slowly dumbifying our society. The simple fact that people don’t even memorize phone numbers anymore because of cell phones is one example of this. Therefore, I am always building something that requires interaction from the viewer: dispensers, structures to go inside of or climb up. Through the discourse of manual interaction I want my work to create a conversation of play. I want the viewer to have a physically engaging experience with my work or take a physical object away from my work. This could be as little as an apple or a piece of candy or as much as climbing in or up a structure. Play is something that has been a constant in my work for many years now. I want to create places of play for the public: Playgrounds and simple structures to interact with. These places of play lead me to discuss the discourse of materials. The materials I choose to use combined with my intuition are the driving force of what I make. By using what I consider to be politically smart materials, things that would otherwise be thrown away, to create playful environments or manually interactive objects, I can be effective as an artist in today’s world. By combining these discourses of sculpture, manual interaction, play, and materials, I can create engaging art used to facilitate social awareness and creative change for those surrounding me in each setting I may be in.

Here is some of my work at the time of my crit. I made an apple dispenser and ate lots of apples and resolved the tall house-like structure, it's not done yet but at a point of resolution.





I made it through my first semester of grad school. The thought of that sounds crazy to me because I feel like I only started yesterday. However, if I think of everything that I have learned and made it seems a lot longer. At first I was completely overwhelmed by all the intellectual people at the school and the fact that we were being forced by default to analyze and then verbalize what we were making. Now, it may still be overwhelming sometimes but I realized that I wasn't letting my process go free and that was why I was struggling so much. Every piece of successful art I have ever made is because I let my intuition run the process and my work becomes what it is because of what happens intuitively when I'm making it. So, I need to combine the intuition and free process with being a little more deliberate about why I choose the materials I use, what I make etc. but not allow myself to feel too controlled. This is the challenge.

I'm off the the mountains for a month...can't wait! Happy Holidays to anyone who reads this!