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Robert Moses Bench 01 2023
horse leather, cherrywood, glass bottles, webbing
Dead Horse Bay was once a stinky little commune comprised of a few hundred people that lived and worked at the animal and refuse processing plants that dotted its shores in the late 1800s. As transportation shifted from horse and buggy to automobile in the early 20th century, most of these businesses dried up or moved elsewhere. Those residents that remained were met with Robert Moses' infamous campaign of land acquisition in the 1950s. With little to no regulation in place to protect low income families, most residents were forced out of their homes and businesses, leaving the area to be leveled and quickly covered with trash. Today, what remains at the beach is a weathering mass of shoes, bottles, clothing, silverware, and countless other banal artifacts strewn across the sand. It offers an honest and sometimes dark glimpse into the lives of those displaced here through the disposable objects that they left behind. In Robert Moses Bench 01 I created a cautionary storytelling piece out of found bottles and a full horse hide that both celebrated the macabre beauty that is Glass Bottle Beach, while criticizing the existence of such a place and the circumstances of its creation.
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All of the wood pieces are wrapped in American Appaloosa horse hair. The seat of the bench is comprised of 64 bottles found by me on the beach, resting on an elastic upholstered frame. I die cut the leather and affixed a piece to the top of each bottle because I wanted full contact with horse hair for whoever sat on the bench. They are held in place by a cherrywood lattice that allows them to be depressed when one sits down on them creating a comfortable and ergonomic seat.
