Process

Healer/ Destroyer

1994
Assemblage with clockwork, and scorpion in antifreeze
28 x 10 x 12 inches
The pendulum spins back and forth regulating a clock without clock hands.
Collection of El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX
(Previously, collection of Richard and Nona Barrett)

The destructive aspects of fear are readily conceivable, although the healing results of fear are not so easily understood. The scorpion in green antifreeze is used as a fear element; similar to what I had been doing with centipedes earlier. The poor scorpion was obtained from a local pet shop. He looked to be the unhappiest one I could find in the bunch; he kept trying to get out. I kept him for a few hours and set him on a rock in my birdbath. He cleaned himself contentedly then crawled under water and stayed there about five minutes. When he came up, he had turned a gorgeous blue. It broke my evil scientist heart to put him in the fridge as suggested by my entomologist friend as the most humane death. After a while I became so distraught…I took him out hoping it wasn’t too late. But, of course, it was. Can we say his martyrdom healed the insecticidal tendency within me?