Introduction to Commissions

INTRODUCTION TO COMMISSIONS

The commissions I create for private clients or public entities are perfect culminations of my experiences in art and architecture. Each project is an opportunity to pursue my ongoing interests – scientific exploration, history, anthropology – on a more ambitious scale, and for a permanent location. By incorporating a client's particular history and narrative into the work the piece resonates with their story. I get to take advantage of a singular set of conditions, consider how time and light translate for a specific site, and make something that will respond to the particular space and how it is used.

  • COMME DES GARÇONS

    Rei Kawakubo, the founder of Comme des Garçons, purchased some of my objects in the mid-1990s. Fascinated by the intersection of art and fashion, she was, at that time, commissioning installations for her Tokyo flagship store by artists whose work resonated with the spirit and aesthetic of her designs. She saw a connection between the layering in her clothing and the transparency and translucency of my work, and so invited me to create objects for a season's collection centered on that theme. I proposed taking the concept further, by building an entire environment for the façade of the store, one that would blur boundaries between interior and exterior through transparent divisions of space. Inspired by Giacometti's 1932 sculpture The Palace at 4 a.m., I made a series of large glass boxes that jutted out onto the busy sidewalk, interrupting the flow of pedestrian traffic. Inside, my glass vessels were placed on the floor like plants in a greenhouse, enticing viewers in the midst of a bustling urban setting to stop, bend down, and be quietly transported for a moment.

  • Giacommeti, The Palace at 4am Detail of installation

  • Toyko installation

  • Toyko installation detail

  • HERMÈS

    "Only the horse knows how the saddle fits" was the original slogan of Hermès, whose humble beginning was as a maker of equestrian gear. When I was commissioned by the company to create pieces for the tabletop, I reinterpreted that tenet, as "only the hand knows how the object feels." I set out to design items as simple, useful, and pure as a bridle for a horse. With the Balance Line Collection, my goal was to make objects that transcend time—heirlooms for the next generation.

  • Inspirations, Collage

  • Balance Line collection

  • Oil and vinegar

  • Salt and pepper cellars

  • Balance Line Collection

  • CRYSTAL SPHERE CHANDELIER

    Influenced by the repetition of multiple points of light generated by suspended oil lamps located in a Süleymaniye Mosque, this chandelier evokes a parallel experience on a more compressed scale. With the Crystal Sphere Chandelier, the points of light are magnified and then reverberate within its structure.

  • Installation view from below

  • Detail End view

  • BELL TOWER CHANDELIER

    Comprised of 37 pendants suspended within the negative space of a spiral staircase, this commission is designed to be viewed both as a sculpture of cascading and floating light, hovering within the house from the entry of this mostly glass residence, and as a sparkling and dramatic fixture with a drop of more than 38 feet as one ascends and descends the stairs.

  • Installation view from below Inspiration

  • LOS FELIZ CHANDELIER

    For an early twentieth-century Spanish-style house in Los Angeles, I wanted to create a piece that evoked the memory of that time without being a replication of it. I looked at a range of influences from Art Deco to the Viennese Secession, and pared it all down to a minimalist chandelier with heavy, hand-cut crystal pendants, at once reminiscent of Paris in the 1920s and scotch tumblers in a Prohibition-era speakeasy.

  • Form study, graphite on mylar

  • Detail

  • CONSTELLATION CHANDELIER

    Suspended within the nearly four-story void of a spiral staircase, thirty-seven pendants form a cascade of light, floating in a residence like a personal constellation. It is an unexpected moment and grand, yet because the lighting is so elemental, reflective, and subtle, it is still a private experience. By day the installation takes on a sculptural quality, as the viewer circulates it while performing the ritual of ascending and descending the stairs. As darkness envelops the piece, it transitions to something celestial, and one ends the day by walking up into the stars.

  • Site of Installation

  • Installation night view Inspiration

  • Installation view from below

  • CAMERA OBSCURA

    Based on the Camera Obscura, an early optical device, this six-foot-wide sculpture has various lenses that capture projected moments happening in the landscape beyond – a tree, a passing car, a bird in flight – and shows them in simultaneity as fragments of inverted images. Standing before it, you experience an odd sensation, much like watching a stop-motion film of disjointed scenes played out on multiple screens in real time.

  • Graphite on Mylar

  • Light Study

  • Shadow Study

  • GLASS SLIDE CHANDELIER

    This piece is a pure expression of my interest in creating new forms from found objects. I have been collecting antique glass slides for more than twenty years. With their ephemeral, ghostlike scenes, they tell a visual history of a collective past. The bronze structure of the chandelier, like a photographic lightbox, frames scenes of cities, farms, buildings and landscapes from the first half of the twentieth century.

  • Graphite on trace, collage Inspiration

  • Detail

  • Front view

  • Installation

  • WONDERTRUST CHANDELIER

    The intricate truss system and crossbeam construction of a Balinese temple was the influence for the Wondertrust Chandelier, which approximates that architectural style with an open steel framework. A tropical climate of intermittent rain is translated in glass pendants, which appear like raindrops falling through the canopy. The piece acts as a room within a room, enveloping all who sit beneath it in a cloud of shimmering and reflective crystal drops above.

  • Inspiration for Wondertrust Chandelier

  • Optical study Inspiration

  • Structural model study

  • Pendant hardware

  • Installation view from below

  • ASTROLABE

    The astrolabe was a sixteenth-century handheld device used to chart the stars along nautical pathways. Here it is reinterpreted eight feet in diameter, with bronze concentric rings descending in scale, and suspended under a domed skylight in a twenty-five-foot-high observatory-like space. Hand-etched on flat glass at the heart of the sculpture is a drawing of an astrological map with notes on the planning of the commission. Illuminated at night, the piece casts an intricate shadow that looks like the blueprint drawing for its fabrication.

  • Inspiration, 16th century astrolabe

  • Graphite on trace, collage

  • Graphite and charcoal on mylar

  • Installation day view Site condition

  • Detail

  • Installation night view