chris beards: debris 
  1. my sincere apologies to those quoted without attribution.


  2. "whimsical" is the popular choice for describing my work. this is based on a non-scientific sampling of various people at various locations at various times.
  3. the art form of the twenty-first century is marketing.
  4. i find things. i make things that look found. i alter found things to look made. i combine these things to make new things.
  5. change is the only constant.
  6. food is not a toy.
  7. begin again.
  8. the major purpose of memory is to predict the future.
  9. i wish i had asked paige or lisa to a school dance.
  10. go-bama!
  11. secret lick
  12. william blake: "everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth."
  13. marcel duchamp: "as soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good-i use it because i have to, but i don't put any trust in it. we never understand eachother."
  14. here is the simplest explanation of e=mc2 i have ever come across and still don't understand: space is time equals matter is energy.
  15. richard tuttle: "to make something which looks like itself is, therefore, the problem, the solution."
  16. adaptogen: substance that helps people adjust to changes in their physical and psychological environment.
  17. the difference between drawing and sculpture is dimension.
  18. can you prove that everything didn't just pop into existence five minutes ago?
  19. california's new poet laureate al young on art: "it is only very young and inexperienced cultures that don't understand that art and culture are the most important byproducts of any society, you're not remembered for your armies or your navies. you're remembered for your music and for your stories. for your literature. for your dance. for your film. for your painting. for your great art. that is what ennobles a society."
  20. marcel duchamp: "the creative act is not performed by the artists alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."
  21. j. pavel: "a machine was the organizing principle among it's parts."
  22. a dialogue is established between the media and my intention. the work is evidence of the conversation.
  23. i explore a slow, more basic technology, with roots in the foundation of an industrial society. gears, levers, wheels, and physical linkages helped shape this type of society; a high-tech revolution of another time and place. whether or not this society has actually existed is not important. the creation of objects that react and interact with unfamiliar situations allow me to explore the possibilities of what could exist.
  24. "art can be a very isolating profession. you spend a lot of time in your own mind."
  25. mechanically engineered botanicals
  26. 4AD
  27. carl jung: "people cannot stand too much reality."
  28. "failure to vote is the mark of a satisfied citizen."
  29. by covering an object with paper and creating a surface, i say this is what it is now.
  30. quality vs. quantity
  31. an implied function or purpose
  32. i think of my surfaces as 'history'. the surface is complete when the history feels believable. the surface takes about as much time as the physical making of the component.
  33. demo-mode: engineering jargon for the malfunction of a device that has repeatedly worked well for you but ceases to operate when you attempt to demonstrate it's capabilities.
  34. gravity is what object-based work struggles against. how a work engages the floor, or wall, interests me. the technical and conceptual resolution of stance.
  35. anxiety is a powerful motivational force.
  36. the work is a record of my decisions.
  37. a grove of trees is engaged in a battle for light and nutrients. shade is a wmd.
  38. first sculpture
  39. maxi m.
  40. a word, a phrase, the collision of two images and the suspected results.
  41. forcing a title onto a sculpture rarely works for me. either it is there initially as part of conception, or suggests itself during the process of making. it is a guide for both the maker and viewer.
  42. i never claimed to be a photographer.
  43. "the abstract work removes itself from the world by tearing away the envelope of resemblance to reveal in the most subjective manner the essence of a thing. relieved from an obligation to reproduce the things of this world, or tediously to question the nature of representation itself, such an art is free to be introspective, addressing itself to matters of the spirit."
  44. '"whittling is whittling," he says definitively. "i don't even like the term art. most people who call themselves artists are weirdos. i don't want to be considered a weirdo."'
  45. magic
  46. occasionally i have made furniture
  47. a particle or a wave, but not both, and probably neither.
  48. craftsmanship should be invisible, not call attention to itself. for me, it is not about how it is made, but rather what is made.
  49. it's not about the materials, but what the materials can do.
  50. introvert, shy, solitary, misanthrope
  51. does time flow? why can we remember the past but not the future? if time does flow, does it flow at a steady rate? my subjective experience says no.
  52. magdalena abakanowicz: "At the beginning of every creative process is mystery, the inexplicable...one of the strongest motives of our time is the search for explanation, the need to explain everything away. explanation is one of the means to tame the mystery of art. talking about mystery has become indecent. many people consider it pure mystification or a lack of intelligence. they want to identify mystery with a problem. and a problem is something which can be reduced to details suceptable to explanation. mystery cannot be reduced to details. it is a whole which embraces us."
  53. rube goldberg
  54. (2001) how long will i have to wait for the next portishead? until april 2008!
  55. the insidious marketing of corporate trends and celebrity gossip seems to eclipse all else. We are bombarded by shrill messages that promote the latest pop-culture fad as something important to our lives; the huckstering of the mass-media intent on promoting dissatisfaction and uncertainty. Our consumer culture shames us into fighting the visible signs of time, of the decay that belies our experience. We are indoctrinated to value the appearance of youth, of newness, at the expense of being confident in or about our bodies, or even our possessions. We are repeatedly told to believe 'new' is 'better' simply because it is new.
  56. science fiction - alternate realities
  57. einstein: "the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. it is the source of all true art and science"
  58. willits center for the arts