River City Weekly December 20, 2007
Assemblage artist makes new art from castoffs by Rebecca Long Pyper River City Weekly
Rebecca Long Pyper interviewed me for River City Weekly, a very nice once-published newspaper of Idaho Falls. She came to my home and went to the thrift store with me for these photos. Rebecca is a very talented writer and wrote this top notch article!
Photos by Chuck Hooker
In her living room where walls are decorated with art she created, Kristine Day sits by one of her large pieces: An assemblage sailing ship with a cutaway hull.
Browsing the aisles at Deseret Industries often leads to a full shopping cart as Day looks beyond the obvious, envisioning the art potential from the store’s thousands of items.
A mysterious donor dropped off a large surprise on the Day’s front porch recently – the inner mechanism of an old piano. Its parts are now becoming art.
“Article—Kristine Day sees an oar in a mixing spoon, a steering wheel in a tie rack and a bikini top in decorative wooden baskets.
As an assemblage artist Day sees objects for what they aren’t. Her art combines existing pieces—mostly wooden but some metal—with other elements to create art scenes and conversation pieces. It’s a necessity to uncover the hidden potential in pieces she forges for in woodpiles, Deseret Industries and boxes of junk friends drop off because those pieces end up masquerading as something else.
The daughter of a wood-worker, Day was familiar with and comfortable in a shop. She dabbled in other art forms but never fell in love. At an Eagle Rock Art Museum exhibit she spotted an assemblage-art display by a Pocatello artisan.”I was so intrigued. I’d never been intrigued by any kind of art like this. I couldn’t get enough of it,” Day said.
She called and quote “basically begged” the artist for help, and after four hours together Day knew what her new pastime would be, she said.
She drove straight to Deseret Industries, then to her parents’ house, stock-piling wood pieces she thought she could use. Her basement studio, brimming with busted-open laptops, chunky and gnarled tree branches, crates and frames, is now so full she doesn’t need more materials, but “it’s hard to stay out of DI sometimes,” she said.
Her projects feature unpainted wood, usually stained for different been intensities and hues. Although she recently started experimenting with paint, she prefers to leave her art as natural as possible.
“I love the feel of wood, I love the smell, I love the grain of wood,” she said.
The living room walls hide behind oversized ships and clocks with details like cannons and mice. Visitors who show up for a tour are offered a list of objects to find in the pieces, which not only takes a while but also inspires conversation…Delaine Shenton, who has a Day decorative clock in her home, said the piece “lures you in and no one can walk by without stopping. The coolest part is little kids think it’s cool and adults think it’s cool. Her art really has this wide variety of interest.”
Sometimes Day’s pieces are planned, and sometimes they are spontaneous. She searches through books and looks at real boat and clock details to represent in her art. But a lot of her work just comes naturally.