Tin Whisper
Tin, Brass, Copper, Stainless Steel
12” x 12” x 3”
I love lips. Intricate, expressive, immense in sensory utility, lips are intimate in many of their duties and yet conspicuously installed on our persons.
Tin Whisper is a study of lips in metal and mechanism. Cast in tin from an impression taken from a human model, a pair of lips mounts in the center of a copper square, a small portion of the gear train visible just behind them as they part. They are fine in detail; the motion conveyed to them by the clockwork is rhythmic, if primitive.
The role of sound in this piece is enlarged by its subject. Because the clockwork’s chatter emerges from behind a mouth, its otherwise incidental qualities become vital to the overall composition.
In exhibition, Tin Whisper elicits a variety of intriguing response: from amusement with its fairground outlandishness to conversation about kissing to commentary on our growing intimacy with technology.
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