Inspired by Tools of the Trade

Carnegie Art Center, Three Rivers, MI, June – August 2010
Artists take their inspiration from a host of sources internal and external, personal and universal,
sacred and profane. . . but one of the many things we have in common is a “connectedness”
with the tools that we use to explore ideas and create our work.

For this exhibition, I asked a group of Kalamazoo area artists to consider their tools in a more conscious way,
to allow their imagination to dwell on the things they use on a daily basis to create their work,
to look at the tools they may take for granted in a new way. . .

Show Statement

Paul Mergen, Tool Landscape, copper images

I am a visual artist and teacher by temperament and practice. I am an object maker by heritage and training.

I use concepts, materials and images to make art a reflection of my own treasured life and visual experience. I use hand tools mostly to make very small objects. They permit more intimacy for me, bringing more clarity and satisfaction; allow me to stay close to the organic forces of materials: the gestures, proportions, surfaces and sounds of a world we all share.

I believe in the elemental themes of our human experience. Stone, bone, fiber and seed. Blade, pipe, disk and bundle. I believe in the quest for one another. Also the quest for food, shelter, vacations and tools. I believe in visual language, commemoration, paper, string and other expression of memory.

I wish for meaning and wholeness. I wish that materials, ideas and connections of all kinds come together with both purpose and surprise. I wish for a notion of perfection that goes beyond the expectation of regularity and a smooth surface. I wish for continuity of the inside and the outside.