My Hobby Tin box, carbon steel surgical instruments, carbon steel scalpel blade, pair of latex gloves, wire, needle, amber bottles 12"x6"x1.75" -- $300.00

Frank McCue's Suitcase mixed media 20.5"x13"x5.5" -- $300 This concept piece is quite interactive  in that several objects in the suitcase can be removed and examined.

The strong voyeuristic aspect of this piece allows us to experience Frank McCue without him being present. We as viewers get to see inside his life and mind through the objects that he has packed, the objects that he keeps with him, the objects that he considers personally valuable. Inside the case is, of course, his Wanted placard which he most likely pulled down after visiting the post office so no one in New Haven would recognize him. He only has one change of clothes ( black trousers and a white shirt) . Also visible are a pair of shattered reading glasses and some reeds for playing his clarinet. The rest of Frank McCue's belongings are much more indirect, much more evocative and suggestive: a urine bag without a catheter, medical instruments ( a pair of surgical tweezers, a thermometer,  and a pipette), bottles of pills and poison, a pulp fiction novel of the day and a book titled "New and Revised Tag Manual for Inspectors of Petroleum" which, although harmless on the outside, holds his secret stash of blurry snapshots of his sexual adventures with other men, who are seen bound with rope. All these elements paint a portrait of someone dangerous, with dark secrets and violent tendencies. But there is one incongruous element that shows a slight amount of vulnerability: a small, framed photo of himself as a young boy with his father.

Ultimately, the piece asks more questions about Frank McCue and the nature of personal experience and privacy than it answers.
 

The Maconium Box mixed media 10"x7.5"x4.5" -- $200.00 This is a small box from the 1950s that was once a child's storage box for doll clothes. It is now filled with a variety of objects that show a contrast between the states of childhood and adulthood and how childhood can end, either literally or figuratively. Objects that would normally be associated with the infancy, health and innocence of the origin of this box (doll clothes, a doll head, and a rubber nipple from a baby bottle) collide with images of  mortality, physical fragility, sickness and decay (stains on the doll clothing, dirt on the doll head, septic medical instruments that, if used, would cause more harm than good, test tubes full of dead flies, and a syringe). An antique bottle of phosphoric acid pills and small x-rays of various areas of the human body add to the disturbing view of inevitable physical foreboding. The word "maconium" is spelled out in wooden tile letters from a game of "Scrabble."

	The Shadow Box mixed media 10"x9"x4" -- $200.00 This is a "shadow" box in the Jungian sense of the word. The outside is black and covered with old, jagged bottlecaps. The lid is a polished black surface that refelcts the face of the viewer. Inside is actual currency from countries around the world, a flattened, rusted miniature pocket knife set, and a black candle. Only the suit of spades from a deck of cards and an image of a gun from a children's card game are tied togehter with black satin cord. A plastic gun echoes the gun on the card. "the book of shadows" contains pictures of murderers, serial killers and criminals. And at the top of the box inside, is the dirty and detached head of a Ken doll along with the remains of a green plastic soldier.

Return to Paintings.		Continue to Soft sculptures,  Books and Photos.