Mel Chin, 1991, 1 of 2

Introduction--Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, Mel Chin

Process of Creation--Chin describes the circumstances that led him to create [Urdu Script] (Belief/Punishment) Yaqin Saza (for Jam Saqi), 1986.

Process of Creation and Technical Specifications--Chin describes the processes and materials that he used to create the work [Urdu Script] (Belief/Punishment) Yaqin Saza (for Jam Saqi). He elaborates on the symbolic meaning of his materials, including books, asphalt tar, fiberglass, and hog's hair.

Subject(s):

Asphalt (material);

Books;

Fiberglass;

Hair;

Screws;

Symbolism (artistic concept);

Tar (bituminous material);

Process of Creation and Technical Specifications--Chin continues to describe the processes and materials that he used to create the work [Urdu Script] (Belief/Punishment) Yaqin Saza (for Jam Saqi). He elaborates further on the symbolic meaning of his materials.

Subject(s):

Fiberglass;

Found objects;

Plywood;

Shutters (opening components);

Wrought iron (iron alloy);

Technical Specifications and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin discusses the relationship between physical form, conceptual meaning, and language in his work. Specifically, he discusses the Urdu script that he chose for the title of [Urdu Script] (Belief/Punishment) Yaqin Saza (for Jam Saqi). He also describes his process of researching Jam Saqi, the prisoner of conscience to whom the work is dedicated. He continues to describe the processes and materials that he used to create the work, elaborating further on the symbolic meaning of his materials.

Subject(s):

Butcher's® Paste Wax;

Beeswax;

Encaustic paint;

Letters (signs);

Pigment;

Symbolism (artistic concept);

Conservation Issues and Process of Creation--Chin offers his opinions regarding specific material issues and long-term conservation of [Urdu Script] (Belief/Punishment) Yaqin Saza (for Jam Saqi). He begins to describe the processes by which he fabricated the work's two main elements, a wheel of books and a bat.

Subject(s):

Bats (game equipment);

Books;

Natural aging;

Waxed paper;

Process of Creation and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin discusses the processes and materials that he used to create, and the conceptual meaning of, the bat element in [Urdu Script] (Belief/Punishment) Yaqin Saza (for Jam Saqi).

Subject(s):

Asphalt (material);

Bats (game equipment);

Kraft paper;

Wood (plant material);

Concept/Nature of Work--Chin explains his practice of fabricating his own tools.

Subject(s):

Rituals (events);

Symbolism (artistic concept);

Tools;

Process of Creation and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin describes the processes that he used to create, as well as the conceptual meaning of, a multi-part work titled The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987. Specifically, he discusses the segment titled Mercury: The Principle of Polarity—The Orbital Rebus.

Subject(s):

Alchemy;

Etymology;

Mythology (literary genre);

Pine (wood);

Science;

Process of Creation and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin discusses the conceptual origins of Mercury: The Principle of Polarity—The Orbital Rebus.

Exhibition and Historical Anecdote--Chin describes how Mercury: The Principle of Polarity—The Orbital Rebus is diagrammed and assembled for exhibition. He explains how he became acquainted with Barron Brown, his assistant, during the fabrication of an outdoor sculpture, MYRRHA/P.I.A. (Post Industrial Age), 1984.

Concept/Nature of Work and Historical Anecdote--Chin explains his practice of learning new techniques with each new project.

Subject(s):

Alchemy;

Artists' materials;

Five agents (Chinese philosophy);

Materials (matter);

Techniques (processes);

Welding;

Conservation Issues--Chin offers his opinions regarding the future restoration of Mercury: The Principle of Polarity—The Orbital Rebus, in the event of damage to the work.

Subject(s):

Age;

Band saws;

Damage;

Natural aging;

Pine (wood);

Restoration (process);

Technical Specifications and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin describes the materials and techniques that he used to create the metal ball in Mercury: The Principle of Polarity—The Orbital Rebus. He also discusses the ball's conceptual meaning.

Subject(s):

Brass (alloy);

Copper (metal);

Dremel;

Inscriptions;

Lead (metal);

Magnets;

Silver (metal);

Solder;

Exhibition and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin explains his installation decisions for Mercury: The Principle of Polarity—The Orbital Rebus, both individually and in relation to the other elements in The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand.

Process of Creation and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin describes the materials and processes that he used to create, as well as the conceptual meaning of, Venus: Conjunction and Entrapment from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987. He focuses on the wire that he used to fabricate the work's net.

Subject(s):

Copper (metal);

Iron (metal);

Mars (Roman deity);

Mythology (literary genre);

Venus (Planet);

Venus (Roman deity);

Wire;

Process of Creation and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin continues to describe the materials and processes that he used to create, as well as the conceptual meaning of, Venus: Conjunction and Entrapment from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987. He focuses on the oyster shell and metals that he used in the work.

Subject(s):

Copper (metal);

Iron (metal);

Metalworking;

Oyster shell;

Patterns (design elements);

Smelting;

Technical Specifications and Conservation Issues--Chin offers his opinions on the future treatment of the copper in Venus: Conjunction and Entrapment. He also details treatments that he applied to the metal during the fabrication process. He and Mancusi-Ungaro discuss three aspects of his creative process: his choice of material, his choice of form, and his material treatments.

Subject(s):

Copper (metal);

Patina (condition);

Processes;

Wax;

Welding;

Technical Specifications and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin describes the materials and processes that he used to create, as well as the conceptual meaning of, Earth: Ceration and Putrefaction from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987. He details the casting processes that he employed.

Subject(s):

Casting (process);

Cast iron;

Charcoal (plant material);

Granite (rock);

Styrofoam (TM);

Technical Specifications and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin describes the materials and processes that he used to create, as well as the conceptual meaning of, Mars: Fixation and Desecration from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987. He focuses on the work's clay elements, which he arrranged to resemble a Chinese character.

Subject(s):

Chinese;

Clay;

Composition (artistic arrangement);

Halberds;

Red bole;

symbols;

Technical Specifications and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin describes the materials and processes that he used to create, as well as the conceptual meaning of, Mars: Fixation and Desecration from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987. He focuses on a series of failed experiments with the work's steel elements, which resemble axe heads.

Technical Specifications and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin describes the materials and processes that he used to create, as well as the conceptual meaning of, Mars: Fixation and Desecration from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987. He focuses on his desire to forge, rather than cast, the steel axe heads.

Subject(s):

Axes (weapons);

Forging (metal forming);

Oil (substance);

Steel (alloy);

Stone (rock);

Exhibition and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin explains the practical and conceptual choices that he made regarding installation of The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987, specifically his decision to embed elements of Mars: Fixation and Desecration in the wall.

Subject(s):

Installations (exhibitions);

Mounting;

Walls;

Technical Specifications and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin describes the materials and processes that he used to create, as well as the conceptual meaning of, Jupiter: Circulation and Self Sacrifice from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987. Specifically, he focuses on his use of wood, silk, and blown glass.

Subject(s):

Cosmology;

Electricity;

Oak (wood);

Tools;

Process of Creation--Chin describes his experience of learning glassblowing techniques and applying them to the fabrication of Jupiter: Circulation and Self Sacrifice.

Historical Anecdote and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin describes an uncanny experience that followed the creation of Jupiter: Circulation and Self Sacrifice. He also discusses the symbolism of his pecking holes in the glass.

Subject(s):

Io (Satellite);

Javelins;

Pelecanus (genus);

Tools;

Concept/Nature of Work and Conservation Issues--Chin discusses his use of Chinese silk in Jupiter: Circulation and Self Sacrifice . He also offers his opinions regarding the long-term conservation of the work.

Subject(s):

Breaking;

Glass (material);

Shipping;

Silk (textile);

Wood (plant material);

Technical Specifications and Concept/Nature of Work--Chin describes the materials and processes that he used to create, as well as the conceptual meaning of, Saturn: Deception and Digestion from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987. He focuses on his use of rawhide, fieldstone, wool, and oil.

Technical Specifications and Conservation Issues--Chin discusses his use of hide glue in Saturn: Deception and Digestion.

Subject(s):

Flaking;

Hide glue;

Restoration (process);

Wool (textile);

[Speakers (in order of appearance): Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, Founding Director, Artists Documentation Program and Chief Conservator, The Menil Collection; Mel Chin]
CM-U: Today is July 22, 1991, and I am Carol Mancusi-Ungaro. I am Chief Conservator of the Menil Collection. We are at the Menil Collection with an interview with an artist in our series sponsored by The Mellon Foundation. Our interview today is being taped by [William] Bill Howze with the assistance of Deborah Brauer of The Menil Collection. Today, we are going to be talking with Mel Chin, who has an exhibition currently on view at the Menil Collection. We are going to be talking about specific pieces, particularly with regard to their materials and concerns over their future preservation. For the purposes of our discussion, we are going to go through the gallery and discuss four works of art that span Mel's later career to this point; and then our second session will be a discussion about issues of conservation in a more theoretical vein. And then finally, time allowing, we are going to ask Mel to look at some of his earlier films and comment upon what he sees, or how things have changed…
Mel Chin: My experience.
CM-U: …his experiences since then.
[00:01:56]
CM-U: So we thought we'd start with the piece that's actually owned by the Menil Collection. It's called (Belief/Punishment) [Yaqin Saza (for Jam Saqi), 1986]. And, Mel, do you want to tell us where you made it, and why, and so on?
Mel Chin: Okay. The Urdu name is Yaqin Saza, and this was made in New York City, in 125 Rivington Street, Apartment No. 5, a fifth floor walk-up. And it was constructed in, when was this, 19…
CM-U: Eighty-six.
Mel Chin: …'86. And what it was, was that the Houston DiverseWorks was sponsoring the Amnesty International Benefit ["Prisoners of Conscience"]…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …at the time. And, as we had done it before, I was sent by random a dossier, a prisoner of conscience.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: And this was a fellow named Jam Saqi. So I looked at the file, and I started to get into it, as it would be. And the choice of materials was first determined by going into, as I would try to understand the language somewhat, and I went to the New York Public Library, and I started looking at his native tongue, which would be Urdu. And came upon the script for "belief," which ends with this big flourish. Yaqin, the "qin" has this big loop and a dot in it. And then Saza, "punishment," would be a stripe [sounds like]. Now why it was that way is because – well, the title had to – it may not come first, but I was thinking about what his particular situation was, and his torture as well as his incarceration…
CM-U: What was – why was he incarcerated?
Mel Chin: He was a, I would say, an organizer of a collective in – I guess – I can't remember the town.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And he was found to possess banned political literature…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …like maybe a red book, or whatever. And that was enough to throw him in for – he had been in for eight years. And he was also a poet, so this – you know, looking into that he was a writer, I looked into the language and then books, and then started to think about what materials would be applicable to represent his case. And the title came about by looking at – trying to find the formal constraints for the piece.
CM-U: So you were looking into what he was doing, or why he was – what his situation was…
Mel Chin: What the situation was.
CM-U: …to look for some sort of formal…
Mel Chin: Yeah. Well, I was just trying to see what I could make for him.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And when it comes random like that, and you want to know the person, and you are breaking something in – if not his honor [sounds like], but something to represent him as well as something to represent the situation…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: I was also reading at the time Elaine Scarry's book, The Body in Pain [: The Making and Unmaking of the World, 1987]…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …which talks about pain and imagination, as well as how objects of torture can just be held up and represent the act itself.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And with all that under my belt, I began to again start there at the library, and then to just – even the sound of words and things – and then to look at the script itself. And consulting with Pakistani cab drivers or shop owners…
CM-U: (laughs)
Mel Chin: …whoever spoke Urdu, in order to say, "Does this look right? And what would you say is belief? Or what would you say is punishment…
CM-U: Huh.
Mel Chin: …in your language? Or could you write this script out for me?" In fact, I got some samples, I think, from the – when I was going to Houston and New York, from a gas station along that feeder, up 59, along San Jacinto, there was a person I would look at. I might say, "Are you Pakistani?" And he says, "Yes." I said, "Do you write or read Urdu?" He says, "Yes." "Okay. Could you write down Yaqin for me?" (laughs)
Mel Chin: And he would do it. And so I took that. And then there would be discourses about what the real word for "belief" was. There's two words, and I settled on Yaqin because of its – it also means "sure belief."
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: To be sure.
CM-U: Um-hum.

Mel Chin: And the piece developed slowly, and it started with just the idea of a circle and a book, painted on. And then when I realized after it was being done on a porcelain plate, I believe, and I was just painting the book over and over, and it was not working out. And it just started with this piece first. And it was also a period of – I had maybe some economic problems at the time, and – but I was torturing myself, I guess, conceptually, what to come up with.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And so it started, I started taking some books out of my shelf to – I was cutting up my own books, and it started with [Karl Marx] Das Kapital – to paint…
CM-U: (laughs)
Mel Chin: …the first "red book." I mean, you know, I was looking at that because I probably – I thought, "Well…" And then I came upon the idea of, well, basically, you know, if he was put in for having books, and then he – surely he still believes, then you can't – it's not the physical presence of an object. So it is the idea of it. And I, in looking upon the word itself, Yaqin, I said that sound of that thing had a fullness and openness about it for what belief could be about.
Mel Chin: And I started – I went down – there was a furniture resale shop in the Essex Street Market there. I can say, you know, that they've been shut out and thrown out, but – so I can talk about them – but I befriended the fellow there, who ran this – it was like, resale furniture or a secondhand store. Big shop. But I was going through some of the books, because I didn't want to destroy all the books in my library for this work. (laughs)
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And we negotiated. I wanted all hard covers, you know…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …and I started to slowly screw and glue them together into this pattern. And with the intent of just destroying them. And it was like a frenzy, what was formed [sounds like] back and forth again. So they are actually screwed together, and they were sliced to be a certain dimension so that I could compact them tight.
Mel Chin: I choose it with – so even just the textural differences…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …of books, and just – if you like books, then you look at the way they are made.
CM-U: And worn. Different ages have different periods of aging, and so on.
Mel Chin: Yes. Right. Yeah. And the hardcover notion [sounds like]. And so they were screwed together, and I got together some roofing tar…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …that had hog hair and glass fibers…
CM-U: Already in it? It was already used tar?
Mel Chin: And it was mixed in, yeah. No, it was asphalt that you patch stuff with.
CM-U: Hmm.
Mel Chin: Uh, like leaks with. But I chose it – when I read the ingredients, I said, "Well, this is, you know, the pig and it's a symbol of ignorance [sounds like], or whatever."
CM-U: The hog's hair, you mean, being a symbol of the pig?
Mel Chin: The hog's hair that was in it. Yeah.
CM-U: Okay.
Mel Chin: Oh well, let's see, there's the hog, and then Tibetan [sounds like], it has the hog, the snake, and the rooster. They chase each other.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: And they all – and the first level of ignorance, or whatever, and lust, and anger.

Mel Chin: So, I thought that was a worthy thing. Also, there is about tar and feathering, you know, destroying the capacity to look at them. And to be sure to do it, I even – well, I cut – this is out of my fire escape. I was looking for materials…
CM-U: (laughs)
Mel Chin: …and they had these shutters that, you know, were – they would – they were no longer being used, but they were still stuck on this very old building. It was probably wrought iron.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: So I just yanked them off my fire escape 'cause didn't seem like they were being used, and I sliced them into these bands.
CM-U: Did you need the bands to hold it structurally? Or was it more conceptual?
Mel Chin: It's conceptual, and yet it also adds extra structural stability, I thought, to it. But I didn't think too much more. It's like, I want to be, again, sure that it was – you couldn't get it out again. So they were riveted together.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: I just pounded them together after it was glued and…
CM-U: And of course this form means these books can never be read?
Mel Chin: Right.
CM-U: I mean, they are locked
Mel Chin: They are locked. Locked up, yes. And then, on the back, we – you know, I think, to really mount it, you know, I was thinking about – I found a piece of scrap plywood and used – went to the auto parts store to get the fiberglass mix, you know…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …and poured that on there. I had to negotiate for the books. I think I got them all for twenty dollars, and I brought in a broken refrigerator before to him. Like those old wooden, you know, nice ice chests, things…
CM-U: Yeah.
Mel Chin: I befriended him by giving him that…
CM-U: Oh, I see.
Mel Chin: …and so – we had this kind of thing, you know. "Could I have this much books?" You know. So eventually this was just covered with the stuff, and then the band was riveted on, and I fastened it on the wall with the fiberglass and plywood.
CM-U: So you had the plywood attached to the back of it with the fiberglass as an adhesive between, and then covering it?
Mel Chin: Yeah, it was the adhesive, and then screws were driven into that as well. So I was trying to mount it that way.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: Now I see – if we were talking about problems or whatever may happen; it may come loose or whatever, I don't know. But it would have to be fixed.
CM-U: So it's both glued and screwed on?
Mel Chin: Screwed on.
CM-U: The support on the back?
Mel Chin: Yeah. Right.

CM-U: And it's distanced away from the wall – was this – you wanted to have this space?
Mel Chin: I wanted to have this kind of floating circle of – it's an idea of it. But I felt the, you know, the power of destructive – that destroying this reading material to give it some presence and then to isolate it. And even the distance between the two things were calculated – because I think the constraints of the gallery was saying, "You have exactly six feet to do your thing."
CM-U: Oh, you mean, for the Amnesty show?
Mel Chin: Yeah. They said, "You are given only six feet."
CM-U: You were allotted six feet.
Mel Chin: So I said, "Well, I better get about six feet."
CM-U: (laughs)
Mel Chin: And I think I went over by three inches. But it was also to give distance between the pieces. 'Cause I didn't expect "belief" and "punishment" to reside together…
CM-U: Are these written this way, with this space? I wonder if we could come in on this? Because I think this circle, what you are saying is…
Mel Chin: Yeah. The actual…
CM-U: …that the actual image of this writing…
Mel Chin: Um-hum. Um-hum.
CM-U: …has a lot to do…
Mel Chin: The Urdu, yeah.
CM-U: …with the form of the piece…
Mel Chin: Right.
CM-U: …and in the space between.
Mel Chin: After I – looking at what to make, I think I – well, I had to; I started there.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: Just looking at the language.
CM-U: Right.
Mel Chin: And I keyed in by just looking in, and said, "Well, this is what it seems to me." Even the sound of Saza…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …has, uh, it just, phonetically speaking, has __________ [phrase inaudible].
CM-U: Do you have your notes or records from that first – the people who wrote these down for you, or any…
Mel Chin: There may be some scraps. It was written on the back of a brown paper bag, I believe…
CM-U: (laughs) Which may have been easily garbage [sounds like]…
Mel Chin: …and then a cab driver, they (extends his hand) – excuse me. And then there would be discourse, you know. "No, that's not the word." Then there's religious belief, you know. I didn't want to use religious belief.
CM-U: No, I just asked because any documentary information is always helpful.
Mel Chin: There may be some. And there is also – I requested more from the person in charge of Jam Saqi's case, and they sent some letters that he had written to Amnesty people…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …words in English. And I wanted to see his handwriting as well…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …to try to understand this person, you know.
CM-U: Um-hum. And you think you may still have those? Or you don't?
Mel Chin: Yes, I do have those.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: Yeah.
CM-U: Good. And what about the white book? And what is it?
Mel Chin: Well, this is encaustic. A beeswax, my own mix of things.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: And raw pigment – powdered pigment…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …that was put in. And painted on – on there. That was the stroke of saying, "It is the idea that is sure," and I believe that it exists regardless of the destruction of – overall destruction of these things.
CM-U: The idea exists, still.
Mel Chin: The idea exists.
CM-U: Persists.
Mel Chin: And it is his belief that got him there to begin with, but it doesn't fade because you torture and you, you know.
CM-U: Hmm.
Mel Chin: So his – and his poetic notions that he may have been involved with.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And his – I guess his wife died. All these...

Mel Chin: ...you know, the things that happen to people. The horrifying reality of torture and incarceration.
CM-U: As trying to foresee or project what may occur to this…
Mel Chin: Um-hum.
CM-U: …in terms of its condition, which is pretty hard to do…
Mel Chin: Yeah.
CM-U: …but anyway. I could imagine fraying of the edges, or perhaps separation of the form in some point. Does the tightness of the circle mean a lot to you, or is that kind of natural aging? Something that you think would be in keeping with it?
Mel Chin: I think the tightness of the circle is pretty much set. I don't think it will change that much unless the paper fibers break down.
CM-U: I just meant these – yeah, the edges fraying a bit.
Mel Chin: Well, I think that would be okay, I think, if it's – it's not okay, but it is okay in terms of just, some things will happen. I was more concerned when I remembered that when it was made, the wax was still very – or, no, the, the asphalt…
CM-U: The asphalt.
Mel Chin: …was still very, uh…
CM-U: Tacky?
Mel Chin: Yeah. Tacky, yeah. And I think – I remember when I brought it down to hang on the wall, I wrapped it up with waxed paper. That was one of my directives, to use, like, Cut-Rite wax paper…
CM-U: Oh, yeah. I use that. It's good.
Mel Chin: Yeah. It was a good thing to handle this and the bat as well, because they are made very close, you know. And timewise, too, I would work…
CM-U: Did you work on them simultaneously?
Mel Chin: In my recollection, I think they were separate, actually, 'cause I wanted, again, to get that distance. And do – paint this very lovingly, and then do that another way.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: The bat was made later. So when this was completed, I set that aside. But it was a short time span. It was an intense, you know, there was something about it. And it started making me think about – when I use the term, "inadequate metaphor," [sounds like] and all these things – how I got so heavy into the making of an object, I was so focused on its execution, that you start fuzzing [sounds like] out what it was about.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: Because, you know, you've got to make a show of it and do this thing. And that was a little disturbing, too.

Mel Chin: So that put me in the right motion to do the bat, which was construction lumber from the street.
CM-U: The bat was just lumber that you found?
Mel Chin: Yeah. It was a big beam…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …and what I did was, I – and there I tackled it very much like screwing the books together. Very – I tried to get into the psychological framework of attacking it. I did it mostly by hand with a Chinese cleaver. Just hacking out this big log. And it was just – it was – so the chips would build up around, and you had this thing, and you're just hacking at it. The…
CM-U: Was the shape, again, related to the written word?
Mel Chin: Yes. The Saza, this last sound of it.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: The punishment aspect. And then I coated it in wax. Yeah, there was a lot of experience about what to – to not just make a bat. And what's around here – I think I can touch it, since no one's here. What's around it is – this leathery looking material is actually brown paper.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: It's a whole human figure that was made, and then, to appear like skin wrapped around __________ [word inaudible].
CM-U: So the figure was cut out of paper first and then…
Mel Chin: Right. And then crushed, and then coated with varnish and dirt from the floor to rub in so it would have the – you know, when you look at skin very close up, it has the texture to give it all these __________ [word inaudible]. Then I stuck it on with the asphalt, and then attacked it again as well. Anyway, I was thinking about the idea of punishment, and how a weapon actually lifts your – the shell of your humanity away from you.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And that's what I would try to express here. To draw the figure, though, I used Michelangelo's study of a leg to begin with because of his flayed figure…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …in the Last Judgment [Sistine Chapel, Vatican Palace, Vatican State] painting.
CM-U: Right. Which is, some suggest, is him…
Mel Chin: Yeah, right.
CM-U: …a portrait of his leg.
Mel Chin: It's in – so his leg, this leg is part of that. Yeah. And so I used that, and then I rapidly tore a figure out, and that served as the – but the leg was the first part. I think the drawing around here shows…
CM-U: Brown kraft paper or…?
Mel Chin: Brown kraft paper.
CM-U: Just brown kraft paper.
Mel Chin: But it had to be the right kind of brown kraft paper. It had to have enough weight to it, you know.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: But it started with just, like, paper bags that were glued together. And that was – but it was an attempt to give it that leather look.
CM-U: And did the wax come after you had attached it to the asphalt? Or you waxed it and aged it first and…
Mel Chin: No, it was aged first. It was just stuck with the asphalt.
CM-U: …first, and then wrapped. [sounds like]
Mel Chin: And then I coated it and then wrapped it.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And I wrapped so – and it ended up, well, see the hand is holding it below, and then trying to stop it above.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: It's like this – two hands.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: This one here.
CM-U: Right.
Mel Chin: And the other one here.
CM-U: That one.
Mel Chin: This left hand. So it's a whole figure just… And I wrapped it many times. And the study was actually an attempt to see how things fall.
CM-U: As they go around?
Mel Chin: Yeah.
CM-U: Is there a front? Or do you…
Mel Chin: I, I – it can go most any way. I kinda – when I put it, I guess, I kind of put the hand here. But it's been photographed many different ways. Sometimes it's best to keep it obscure.

CM-U: Now we've already noticed a change with just the kind of separation of the paper.
Mel Chin: Um-hum.
CM-U: Unless maybe that…
Mel Chin: That was intentional.
CM-U: That's your intention?
Mel Chin: Yeah, that was my – when I attacked the skin again, after it was wrapped on.
CM-U: What did you attack it with?
Mel Chin: Everything __________ [phrase inaudible]…
CM-U: Looks like a lot of little holes. Screwdrivers?
Mel Chin: Yeah, screwdrivers. But I make a lot of my own tools, and that was probably – I probably used a chunk of iron with a car spring. So I would sharpen a car spring up.
CM-U: Why do you make your own tools?
Mel Chin: Well, I think there's a linkage there with – sometimes, like in one of the pieces that we'll look at later, the Jupiter piece, it's like it's symbolic. Well, I read this thing about, you know, how you make a – I mean, [Chinese alchemist Ge] Hong [283-343 CE] brought it out in that discourse about the operation of the sun, the – to make a weapon to kill the fish with, you make a certain deity out of the thing. So this means it's about your control or something. I don't know. But it's – making your own tools, it's just – I think it makes the work more of a symbolic act or something when you're…
CM-U: Um-hum. It makes – it's more personal for you, maybe in a way, too?
Mel Chin: It is very personal. Sometimes also, when I was pecking at the wood, you know, it's based in the pelican pecking at the heart (taps chest)…
CM-U: Yes.
Mel Chin: …then a screwdriver won't do, nor will a pick, or whatever. You have to make a little beak in order to do the job.

Mel Chin: One thing that Yaqin Saza – we'll just carry on from there…
CM-U: Okay.
Mel Chin: …taught me was the etymology, like words into materials, into forms. You know, linkages between them. So, jumping off into that wagon – jumping onto that wagon, this piece [The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987] was an attempt to link scientific, alchemic, and mythologic structures, and their origins, and their forms, and their materials to one thing. And it was a mixture of two – it was cross-cultural, too, because it was Chinese and Greek texts that I was consulting…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …over a large period of time, in order to come up with these elaborate concoctions. Byzantine, it was described. And I felt Byzantine after it was done, but the – Mercury [The Principle of Polarity—The Orbital Rebus from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987], as far as material, is Eastern white pine that was mined, or logged in my assistant's grandmother's yard in McLean, Virginia. We cut the pine. We selected the trees that would be okay. She had a big spread there. And – sort of like the Ponderosa…
CM-U: So you cut it right from the trees?
Mel Chin: We cut a tree. We took fallen lumber as well as trees that were on the site. And so we did lumbering.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And then we would haul them out of the woods, piece-by-piece (holds arms out), logs. And there's about ninety-something sections that we took out of the woods.
CM-U: Had you ever done lumbering before?
Mel Chin: No, but it was…
CM-U: Was this – was this part of the intrigue, to do something that you hadn't…
Mel Chin: Well, it was part of – it just had to be done.
CM-U: Um-hum.

Mel Chin: The – you know, the shape of this is the inner orbital space – you know, expanded – of Mercury and its track around the sun, and the Earth around its track of the sun. And why the pine was important was because Mercury is involved with longevity, and a symbolic equivalent in Chinese. But also I was looking at Descartes' view of the world and the solar system…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …and his vortices and an illustration in the – let's see, was it 1622? – It shows these very ring-like structures, very tree trunk-like structures locked in these configurations. In fact, this is an exact duplication of that particular – the key to the piece. But, yeah, the lumber was pulled out of the woods and then brought to Leesburg, Virginia, where his shop was. And we set up a band saw, so there was twelve inches high is the limit of the band saw. And each one was cut and then fitted. And it was random, so every one had to be measured.
CM-U: Hmm.
Mel Chin: It took a long time to do it. It took months, to fit it.
CM-U: Oh, I should imagine.
Mel Chin: So I had a big pattern laid out, and it would have been impossible to draw it all, so I would just start it off and cut one by one, the inner ring, and start stacking them.
CM-U: Did the configuration of the keystone have a certain, uh, meaning beyond the form?
Mel Chin: The keystone is – right.
CM-U: And from that, you just randomly made the other forms?
Mel Chin: Right. Well, I worked it into – I knew it was going to go here. (points at keystone)
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: It was sort of the key to the piece. And sort of the relationship of this – the scientific thrust of his view of the solar system, and the fluids that move the bodies.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And the whole shape also is related to the Men-an-Tol. That is the great stone circles…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …like at Cornwall. Where you can – it was known that you pass babies through. So these are sort of the interests of the birth canal, and the healing canal, the caring aspects of Mercury. So the shape was also worked in.
Mel Chin: And there is a slight little dish here, which is like the serpent swallowing its tail. This little hacking [sounds like] here…
CM-U: oh yes. Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …was the Ouroboros, the classic idea behind the beginning of the work, the great work. And this was the beginning work – of a lot of work! (laughs) But the other aspect though, to give it more time – the other aspect, the feel of time – that all these were sandblasted.
CM-U: Sandblasted?
Mel Chin: Yeah, I sandblasted it to give the weathered look.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: Or to add greater age to the logs to bring out the rings. So it was…
CM-U: What did you sandblast with? Do you remember?
Mel Chin: It was just blasting sand.
CM-U: it wasn't walnut shells or something like that? It was sand…
Mel Chin: No, it was blasting sand.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: Like the __________ [word inaudible]. That was done as a final touch when it was somewhere in New Jersey.
CM-U: Is there any coating on it, or oil, or anything?
Mel Chin: No. There are probably some splotches of oil that came off the chainsaw…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …'cause I fitted the pieces – it was, like, consistent in width. And then we – you know, the great effort was to figure out how to connect it all together. And the final outcome of that was to pre-drill the outer ring and put hidden cables within to give it that sense of magic, or another sensibility, and to hold it all into tension. So it's a tension like a barrel, but hidden within, the cables run through all the logs. But it was stood up, and then I went around and just carved it out with a chainsaw.

CM-U: Do you have a plan for this, or a drawing of how each piece goes? Or do you feel intimately involved as having to be the person who puts this together?
Mel Chin: Well, there had to be a plan because there are so many chunks, and – but there is, on each log, a little nail and a little number. Barron my – Barron Brown, my assistant, advised to – because to put it back together, whatever, again. And there is a mapping of how this piece goes together.
CM-U: It's been exhibited three times, is that right?
Mel Chin: Yes.
CM-U: Did you put it together each time?
Mel Chin: I worked – yes. Well, I put it up, of course, in the first time with Barron. But it can be done without me. I think here it was done with me throwing a couple on there, or arranging it, but…
CM-U: So your feeling is that your input was making it, coming to terms with it…
Mel Chin: Yes. Yes.
CM-U: …creating it? And then the recreation of it as necessary falls in the hands of whoever is responsible?
Mel Chin: Yes. That's fine.
CM-U: Let's diverge for a minute and talk a little bit about Barron…
Mel Chin: Okay.
CM-U: …and when he started working with you. Did he work on Belief/Punishment? No?
Mel Chin: Uh, no, he didn't. He has worked on some of these pieces, but this one very intimately. And braved many things to get it done. Like going out – going out in the woods. The extreme effort, the summer, or whenever it was, and the spring, too. To go out into this heavily wooded area and then eventually cut the pine logs up and bring them out one by one. 'Cause some of these logs, to get this cut, has to be about this size [sounds like] (holds arms out) – maybe a hundred pound sections – that we would __________ [phrase inaudible]. We would walk…
CM-U: How did you meet Barron?
Mel Chin: I met Barron in Nashville, Tennessee. He was a computer science major, and somewhat of a recluse…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …back then, he was living with Helen [Nagge], my wife…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …at the time. They were sharing a house…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …with some other friends. And so I met him there. And I think our first interaction is when I was stuck there – when my car blew up, and I quit making art and started working on cars.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: The '67 Plymouth convertible I called Sputnik, the…
CM-U: It blew up?
Mel Chin: Yeah. I blew the motor in Nashville, and so I was stuck. And it was good 'cause I got into car-dom, you know. I felt that that was the way of getting into the great American experience, to know, to be very involved with, you know V-8 motors.
CM-U: Uh-huh. (laughs)
Mel Chin: The nuts and bolts attitude. And right after I assembled the whole engine, and I had forgotten a very important aspect. A wire. And Barron came out to help, and he discovered the wire. And then we became friends slowly. But then, I think our first working relationship was in Bryant Park in New York City.
CM-U: The MYRRHA/P.I.A. [(Post Industrial Age), 1984]?
Mel Chin: That's right. That was a six-week project that somehow I managed to extend into six months because all the parts, the metal parts, I had fabricated by hand on the park by using nineteenth century bending tools to bend the angle iron. And that was a big pattern. I laid a [sounds like]…
Mel Chin: And to assemble it, though, I needed help. And his brother was an engineer. They were visiting, and they just loved the idea of putting it together. And it was bitter cold, and it was like, probably – uh, it was one day it was twenty below, wind chill, we were up in the scaffolding…
CM-U: Wow!
Mel Chin: …five levels, and thirty feet high, and lifting pieces of iron and bolting it together by hand. And I guess when you work through that kind of thing, you will forge a friendship. If not, you either become a friend or a permanent enemy for subjecting somebody to so much [sounds like]. But Barron saw a great desire to work on my projects, because they seemed to be different every time.
CM-U: Uh-huh. This project – before we go on – is the MYRRHA/P.I.A.…
Mel Chin: Right.
CM-U: That was a sculpture at Bryant Park behind the New York Public Library. You did it in '86, '87?
Mel Chin: That was '84, '85.
CM-U: Eighty-four? 1984–85. And it was up a year? Six months?
Mel Chin: It was up a year.
CM-U: A year? And then has – where is that piece?
Mel Chin: It's in this dealer called Max Hutchinson has a – up in upstate New York has a place called Sculpture Fields…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …and it's sitting up overlooking…
CM-U: So it's on exhibition there?
Mel Chin: Yes. It's installed.
CM-U: Installed?
Mel Chin: Yeah.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: And it was just a handmade…
CM-U: Was that the first time you welded? Did you weld…
Mel Chin: Yeah.

Mel Chin: I was on the job training. I was – that also was a time where I would say, "Well, what I don't know about?" I didn't know anything about cars, so I decided to do that. And then I said, "Well, the next logical step is, better learn about this welding. Everybody says that a sculptor knows how to weld, so I better learn."
CM-U: Right.
Mel Chin: And so I tackled something very large, and metal forming, and all the things that were necessary to put it together.
CM-U: This seems to be a pattern of trying new – teaching yourself as you go along, in terms of material and technique [sounds like].
Mel Chin: Well, yeah, I consider it – it can be a perverse form of mutation or whatever that you impose on yourself. 'Cause I do see, when I describe my personal evolutionary process, I don't see it as a, you know, a textbook flat tree where you would find my separation from the apes or from, you know, a horseshoe crab, or whatever. I see it, rather than flat, as a dimensional tree of experience.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And it's fun to jump around, to limb, to limb; and by doing that, you actually get a greater view of the whole picture. The whole thing comes about. So, going to idea-to-idea, method to another method, is one way I have decided to tackle things.
Mel Chin: Yeah, it's a bit hard. It's a lot more time consuming. But, just like this piece is, you know, my knowing that I had such a rudimentary idea of alchemy other than, like, whether gold – I remember Helen brought out a note that I wrote ten years before this piece, in a postcard – something I had been reading. Something about Duchamp's interest in alchemy, and saying, "This is something I'll have to check into some day."
CM-U: Hmm.
Mel Chin: And then, growing up with my parents, and the whole relationship of Chinese alchemic ideas, like "five element theory," these things all coalesce into something like this, I guess.
CM-U: Well, it seems the working out of the new process, or the new skill, is definitely all part of your coming to terms and getting to know both the form and material that you need to work with.
Mel Chin: Yeah. I think there is a – when people talk about the – what is it when he has a good sense of materials? I try to evade that by saying, "Well, it's not just the – having, you know…" I believe that's the sensate [sounds like] idea.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: I think there is some information that is loaded in these materials, and that's why the choices were being made. By going, thinking about the etymology of – not only the word "material" and all that, I said, "Well, there's more to it in the form itself. There's all kinds of information packed within things. And they can be further packed by your choices." So I was more into the ability for the material to talk. So, anyway, here we have this.
Mel Chin: And also there is a relationship to the – of even the structure of these hexes. You can see it as the scales of the animal itself.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: Or the structure of carbon, which this eventually becomes.

Mel Chin: So it's about time as well, and the breakdown of elements.
CM-U: In the event one of these pieces broke…
Mel Chin: Um-hum.
CM-U: …or was missing for some unknown reason, would you feel that this had to be hand cut from pine again? Or would a material that approximated the appearance of the other wood…
Mel Chin: I would…
CM-U: …suffice?
Mel Chin: No, I think it would have to be pine.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: I think it would be the easiest thing, too. I mean, it – well, not that easy! Come to think about it. But it would – I would suggest that they set up their band saw the same way, with a twelve-inch, you know. I think that's what we're using. We're using a fourteen-inch band saw with this block that raises the cutting depth to twelve inches. And then saw it to fit. And then it should be blasted and set back in [sounds like].
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: I think there are – in fact, I have an extra log in my studio just in case.
CM-U: Um-hum. And what about a new piece of pine? Would that be a different color? It wouldn't have, necessarily, the aging. It should be artificially aged in some way to approximate? Or do you feel it's – or not?
Mel Chin: Well, in this case, I guess if it was missing, it would – that would be up to – that just doesn't – I think it would eventually age up, so it's okay, you know.
CM-U: Okay. Well, we'll talk about that issue more as we look at other things because…
Mel Chin: Yeah. That's a difficult one there.
CM-U: Yeah, that is a difficult issue.
Mel Chin: I know when you blast these things it appears very white.
CM-U: Right.
Mel Chin: You know, and the oxidation creates this yellow cast to it and brings it back to pinedom. But…

CM-U: Well, it's very beautiful pinedom, I must say.
Mel Chin: Thanks.
Mel Chin: Oh, yeah, this ball…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …for the track of Mercury, is made of silver, lead, solder, brass, copper, and is held – and has most all the metals except mercury and gold. These are two materials that I do not use in this piece.
CM-U: Hmm.
Mel Chin: Within the alchemic idea, that's the beginning – mercury is the beginning, and gold is the end. And I said, "Well, no, I don't want to leave myself a lot of freedom on both sides of that." But it was a conscious effort to do this amalgamation of materials and include magnetism.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: There is a magnet buried within this block, and there is some rare earth magnets within the ball itself…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …to help it cling to the thing. I think here it is glued in for safety reasons, so people don't pocket it. But in most of the installations, that seal breaks. But it would still cling to it magnetically, the thing. And it was soldered and then hand inscribed. You can see all the little cuttings and things…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …the little – so it was hand-etched with a sharp tool.
CM-U: What about the tool that you used to make that?
Mel Chin: Well, this is just hammered brass, and the tool I used to – I can't remember if it was a dremel tool, just to cut this edge and then – but I just used a sharp scribing tool to…
CM-U: Um-hum. And just worked on it – the writing?
Mel Chin: Yes. To give it – and then this very quickly – not quickly, but it was just very randomized cutting thing. Though there was some, you know, inherent structure there. This was very intimate.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: This was – the ball that's loaded with all the metals.

Mel Chin: And so that was done in a very different way. And it's also lifted off the ground by a shoe to give it – again, I like things to be separate from – to defy gravity.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: You know. And just like to put it into tension, to load it with – very much, maybe, like the books, if we were to make a parallel. But it being bound by energy. Potential energy.
CM-U: It does relate to the books in that way.
Mel Chin: Right.
CM-U: In a circle.
Mel Chin: I think, when you do certain…
CM-U: Space from the wall.
Mel Chin: Yeah. I think you could load it with this, with that kind of stuff as well. And this, indeed, it has to be pulled very tightly to keep it from falling apart. And I remember when we first installed it, some of the wood was still wet; and it would change, and we'd have to come tighten it.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And it would be cracking, and making noises, and the splits have all – a lot of the pressure has been relieved 'cause a lot of these were, you know, of course, solid when – But I like that. I like that. I think the aging process is essential.
CM-U: So in this case the aging process is very much a part of it?
Mel Chin: Yes.
CM-U: Um-hum. What about the position of Mercury in relation to the other pieces we'll be looking at in a moment?
Mel Chin: Um-hum? In terms of why…
CM-U: Yeah. Why is it there? And it should always be in that axis to – in relation to the others?
Mel Chin: Yes. Because, to me, you have to go through Mercury – or, this is your passage to the rest of the solar system idea. Or the rest of the metals, or the rest of the ideas. And so your birth is through here.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: You peer through here to look at the rest. And it faces – there is some relationship to this arc and the arc of the Uranus piece, which was the – you know, the god of heavens, whatever – in the mythology [sounds like].
CM-U: I see.
Mel Chin: And a lot of things – should know that a lot of the measurements were based on, like, my height, or whatever. Like, it just happened to fall within ninety-three inches or something. Which, an inch per million miles, would be the relation of earth around the sun. And the shape of it was determined by mapping the elliptical. So it's slightly off. You see how it's wider at the top?
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And that was conscious, to add more weight at the top as well.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: But this happens to be the track of the planets themselves, kind of inscribed on this ball of wood – or this ring of wood. But a human measurement, the cult of the hand aspect, was brought forth from the African Ikenga, strength cults.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And I realize that they don't make hands. They make things to show the power of the hand. Like, you know, horns and stools and things. They pay homage to its ability to give life and take life away as well. And I felt like all these things indeed should be – is, in a way, a homage to what the hand can do. And, as I point out, it's not one of the most – it's redundant to say this – as I point it out – it is the pointing that intrigued me.
CM-U: The pointing of the hand to the inspiration?
Mel Chin: To something. Yeah. The story came from [historian of religion Mircea] Eliade. He was speaking of [Hernán] Cortés meeting the Indians. And they both have knives of iron. And Cortés had not seen any blacksmithing shops on the way, of course, to polish his – because by then, surely rusting – armor. And the first question was, "Where did you get those?" And the Indians pointed to the sky. I thought that's a great leap in terms of, uh, something comes from the sky, then you make something from that to represent abstract ideas or things. And so very much it was this whole idea of the celestial vault here as well. I guess we should talk a little bit about the whole room because…
CM-U: Okay. Let's do that.
Mel Chin: …because the original installation that was in New York at this Loughelton Gallery, that had a vaulted ceiling. And I felt that that was very much a clue or a condition, actually, that made me decide to do this piece. Because it is a celestial vault made of metals that the ancients felt these materials came from. And it links things with – copper, or iron, and all these things, to materials. And when you do it in an astrological – or in astronomy – and all the relationships… So the vaulted ceiling was a very important relationship. And then the whole curve of the walls is like intersecting circles, is the Vesica Piscis. The intersecting fish symbol…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …was an ancient, you know, geometric device to lay out buildings as well. I mean, you can see it within certain sacred architecture, if you want to go into that mumbo jumbo with the – it's there. You can see the plans and things. So I was just trying, again, to get into that frame of mind.
CM-U: And using, in this case, the vaulted ceiling kind of said, "Now is the time to do this piece."
Mel Chin: Right.
CM-U: Or to think about this piece.
Mel Chin: Right. The vaulting becomes – the celestial, the top of the thought, the cap of the thought.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And then things fall from there.
CM-U: Well, let's look at some of the other pieces that are in this installation then.
Mel Chin: Okay.

CM-U: We've moved around the room now to some of the other pieces, and we are going to start with a discussion of Venus [Conjunction and Entrapment from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987], which is the piece at the top wall.
Mel Chin: Right.
CM-U: Okay, what inspired the materials for this piece?
Mel Chin: Well, this is – the first step with all these works was to study – go back to the old texts, and look at the mythological constructs and the name Venus, and where she comes from, and perhaps also the alchemic equivalent of conjunction. This is called Venus. All the pieces have two names…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …it's the planetary assignment, which was Venus, and then the alchemic concept, which was conjunction, and then – and entrapment, which was a mythologic construct.
CM-U: I see.
Mel Chin: So all these things conspire to make an object. The metallic signature for Venus, is the copper that is all – this is all copper wire that is welded together. And these are copper plates that were made – with Barron by hammering down copper pipes and smelting them in a homemade furnace, and then pouring into molds. Sand molds. And then they were reformed where I have inscribed the path of blood through the heart. And the spike going through is another part of the fire escape, which was a locking bar that was sawed and then formed into this shucking knife. And it is going through an oyster. This is one of the more tastier pieces…
CM-U: (laughs) So it's the copper __________ [word inaudible] over the oyster with another type – the shaft is another metal, or is it copper?
Mel Chin: The shaft is iron.
CM-U: It's iron.
Mel Chin: 'Cause it's the mythological story that this comes from is, Venus and Mars in bed…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …and Vulcan [Roman God of Fire and Metalwork], the husband, coming in and throwing a net that he forges out over them.
CM-U: So he entraps them in bed.
Mel Chin: He entraps them and shows them off. And it's a big laugh on everybody's part.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: But what kind of net? You know, the configuration of this net is based on the Y and C [sounds like] cloud bands that encircle the planet, Venus, according to Mariner 10 satellite photos.
CM-U: Huh.
Mel Chin: So I plotted this out very flat, and then you can see the grid pattern in all the Y-C formations.
CM-U: So the actual configuration of the wires is very important…
Mel Chin: Yes, it is. Very.
CM-U: …for installation and future preservation of it?
Mel Chin: Right. Right. And how it is laid into this, you know – there's little pinholes where all the wires sink into the thing. This is half of the hemisphere, of the cloud patterns that go in here.

Mel Chin: The oyster shell inside is very important, too. I went to the Oyster Bar in New York…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …and had, it must been two dozen oysters.
CM-U: Well, that must have been hard.
Mel Chin: That was hard. It's very difficult because I was looking for what the Chinese prescription for the two-part combustion chamber, which I thought this kind of activity of conjunction might be about. You seal it with six precious ingredients, and one of them was the left-handed oyster, or the left-leaning oyster.
CM-U: Oh. Okay.
Mel Chin: Which means – I don't know what that means. And neither did – even in the fourth century texts, they were scratching their heads about it as well. But I decided that there must – I was consulting with people like mollusk experts, and talked about, you know, the spiral formation of shells, and backward, and leftward. And they said, "Well, it is an aberration, because there are only several varieties that all consistently spiral left…"
CM-U: Huh.
Mel Chin: … "and some that go – most of them go right."
CM-U: So it's actually the pattern on the shell?
Mel Chin: The pattern on the shell. In this case, it was the hinge of this shell. So I ate enough until I found one that was the – and sure enough, if you want to hold it a certain way – like I decided, the one that was most common, the right hinge – 'cause if you flip it upside down, of course, it reverses the hinge…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: But when I would hold the shell and look at it, I would look for one that leaned left.
CM-U: Hmm.
Mel Chin: So when I found the left-leaning oyster, that would be the one to be the sealant in this kind of act that they are performing. And so the metal bar is, again, from, as I said, the fire escape had a locking bar. And I was trying to use metals that were older, too, that were – that – the building that I was living in was like from the 1890s or whatever. I felt that there might – there was a greater possibility that that might be wrought iron.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And that would give it the relationship with forging, and you know – and from the bloom, and be closer to probably the metals that were used in the olden days. Right?
CM-U: Let's just talk for a minute about you – you said you and Barron melted this metal, or shaped it at home in a smaller furnace [sounds like]…
Mel Chin: Well, he had in his place, he has a little workshop, and it's like a homemade crucible, and a smelter.
CM-U: But this was important to you, as opposed to going to a professional smelter and saying, "This is the shape I want."
Mel Chin: I thought we had to make our metals.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: Like, I could have probably found flat copper sheets…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …but it was more important to mine it, to, you know, the word "metal" in Greek is from "to find."
CM-U: Hmm.
Mel Chin: "To seek out." And so we had to go and seek out, you know. In this case, instead of going to the ore, there was a rich supply of old copper pipes that we pounded and separated and had smelted down. And also, this interlocking plates, you know, I wanted to fabricate them a certain way to trap the oyster, as well. And the shucker that would go in.
CM-U: So in terms of actually doing this, that's what you did? You did entrap the oyster as you made this.
Mel Chin: Right. So it was – oh, the plates are wired together. It was also pounded, and – it's forged together.
CM-U: And what about the pattern on the copper?
Mel Chin: The pattern? I looked at a diagram of the flow of blood through the aorta and the ventricle, and so that's what – that's the pattern that is etched – those are the valves of the heart, those little things. And it's sort of like the – an association with Venus and the heart as a seat of emotions.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And the flow of blood in the sexual act. All these things were considered. And also, the oyster seemed like the right thing to be involved, too, with its associations. So – for two reasons, you know.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: For both reasons.

CM-U: The color of the copper, at this point in its life, is what you would expect, the color of a copper penny.
Mel Chin: That's right.
CM-U: As it ages, as it's possible for it to change its color, what is the importance of the color…
Mel Chin: I prefer to keep it – try to keep it this way.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: It is coated with a light mixture of wax. You know, I use a lot of Butcher's wax, which has different waxes [sounds like].
CM-U: Do you mean like the Johnson amp; Johnson Butcher's Wax, or something like that?
Mel Chin: Yeah. It's one of the – to coat it. Now this copper wire has oxidized a lot. It is all – it's not brazed, it's welded. All the joints are welded.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: And some may have snapped right there, but that's a matter of sticking it back together. And then it was treated – I wanted to turn it its envious color, so that was treated with the copper sulfate or whatever to…
CM-U: To make it look green?
Mel Chin: Yeah, to give it a patina. So there's __________ [phrase inaudible]…
CM-U: Uh-huh. I see. Well, that's an important distinction, then…
Mel Chin: Yeah.
CM-U: …between these two coppers.
Mel Chin: It's all copper, yeah; but I wanted to have Vulcan's jealousy to be coated a certain way. And it is – my reality, it is a sulfuric acid cloud that surrounds the atmosphere of Venus in these YC patterns, so they are – these choices are being made. I tried to use the text to hone and restrain my imagination in a way, that I had to follow prescribed things. And they would verify or kick out decisions as well. Like, if I was making an intuitive decision – "No, I think I'll just make this net." But then the problem is, what kind of net? What form will it take? And how will you treat it afterwards?...
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …were being determined by a Mariner 10 photo and information about the reality…
CM-U: So it's both what kind of material, and what form, come through your research and your…
Mel Chin: The research…
CM-U: …coming to terms with…
Mel Chin: …as I describe the research – it would – research – to research and destroy preconceived notions about things.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: You know, like I could just say, "Let's just make a copper thing." But that's not enough.
CM-U: Huh-uh.
Mel Chin: It was not just about metal. It was other notions that were put in. Even its placement of the walls, like the axis of this is 178 degrees. It's slightly tilted.
CM-U: Slightly.
Mel Chin: It is the axial tilt. It's two degrees off in Venus. And the placement of the embedding in this wall that we were talking about are kind of about the – the embedment of the wall – was for several reasons. Since these are planetary bodies, though, it's grossly exaggerated scale. I tried to get them in relationship to astronomical units by pressing my hand as far as I could, into nine inches. These are like body measurement related pieces.
CM-U: Before we get onto that a little bit more, can we just go back to the third aspect that I think is so interesting – your choice of materials, and then your choice of a form, and then the final one, you said, was treatment.
Mel Chin: The treatment. Yeah. Well, some things we'll allow to – there were materials that are assigned to the – not only to the gods, but to the reality like the planetary notions – always linking time to here. And the treatment in terms of – as this acid treatment to give it the patina, was determined by knowing that that was a sulfuric acid cloud. Even thinking about what jealousy might come…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …you know, the traditional…
CM-U: So it's kind of a modification of the materials…
Mel Chin: Modification. Yes.
CM-U: …for __________ [phrase inaudible].

Mel Chin: But really thinking about what it is. Even – we'll talk about the Mars piece, or even that, as well…
CM-U: Okay.
Mel Chin: Well, even this piece, we could talk about Earth…
CM-U: Well, let's go back into – or, let's think about those three processes of your creative process.
Mel Chin: Right.
CM-U: And, as we talk about the others. But let's talk about Earth [Ceration and Putrefaction from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987], and let's get into this issue of it pushing into the wall.
Mel Chin: Well, Earth indeed has that. First of all, let's talk about the layers. The Earth piece I consider like a pet.
CM-U: Okay.
Mel Chin: In a way, it's how we treat it. Horribly, you know.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And it was maybe an ecological brewing – statement, I mean, brewing here. And Earth is called "ceration and putrefaction."
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: Another thing in alchemy is how you decompose to be reborn again. But ceration, or the waxing as a condition in the crucible, as things are about to form and change apart, the ancients, as they are looking at the metals forming in the thing – and as we were looking at, you actually see these transformations happening. And the right material for this is cast iron. You know, cast iron, which is indeed the core of the earth. I consulted with scientists at Berkley to find out what is the depth, what is the latest soundings, you know. So I did a mapping of the mantle. Well, the crust is exaggerated, but the mantle, and then to the core. And how this was made is, I would – I carved this out of Styrofoam. We did a Styrofoam™ burnout, and the cast iron was…
CM-U: You mean first you had it in Styrofoam™?
Mel Chin: I carved in Styrofoam™. And I embedded in pieces of carbon and charcoal to give it more of a textural, pitted look. But I liked the Styrofoam casting when I experimented with it because all the gases escaping also gave this, all this incredible activity to it. And there was also my belief that I wanted to describe these molecular processes. Processes, though they are static, they are not. They are active. And the levels here sort of relate to that. To the – this is pounded scrap metal with bedded in pieces of cast iron as well. I made it in little chunks to gradually do the transition into the mantle, which is a molten rock. This is granite that was collected from around here 'cause I wanted that pink granite.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: It's that "flesh of the earth" look.
CM-U: Um-hum. You mean Texas?
Mel Chin: Texas, yeah.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: Home boy stuff.
CM-U: Yeah. Well, that's okay. It's part of the earth.
(laughter)
Mel Chin: But the core. It was done as sand cast, and it was done in these levels, and there was a bolt riding through. There's a wood form as well. It's all mixed together here. This material was collected in New Jersey, by someone who I assigned to go out in the woods. It was Helen's sister Carolyn [Nagge], she…
CM-U: The surface material…
Mel Chin: Just the fungus and everything. And I just said, "Just collect a bag…"
CM-U: Wax. Is this embedded in wax?
Mel Chin: Yes. This was just poured over and dropped, and poured, and poured, and poured, and poured. The ceration aspect, describing a condition of change, or possibility. And selecting all dead material, too. Or rotting…
CM-U: Is there a significance of the fact this material is from New Jersey, this stone is from Texas, that, again, in terms of future preservation…
Mel Chin: And the sash weights, and the engine block materials are from GM…
(laughter)
CM-U: GM, right. (laughs)
Mel Chin: I guess…
CM-U: Or was that just practicality?
Mel Chin: It was practicality, but I did, like, a cross section – I remember, like I'll go into very specific materials that – like the olive branches here that came from wherever olives were growing in California. I wanted __________ [phrase inaudible]. At the time there was, you know, a conclusion that things should come from different parts of different animals and different places.
CM-U: Um-hum. So there, again, we have the form and the materials coming from…
Mel Chin: Right. And then…
CM-U: …and then the treatment…
Mel Chin: The treatment, again…
CM-U: …the wax.
Mel Chin: …of the core had to be cast iron, of course.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And even the depths and things were – and the way it was cast. Not a smooth, polished chunk of cast iron, but something – when you look closely at the material, and the bubbles, and the pattern of gases as they are escaping, the marks of the heat as it goes through the sand, trying to escape when things are being burnt out. That was very well appreciated. And then the folding of the layers. They were just pounded metals, and compressing and compacting, the weight of the metal pushing down on the thing.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: All these are little slivers of sheet metal found in the streets of New York City, and then bedding in with chunks of little cast iron, too. It's not just transition, but the idea of things…
CM-U: Compressing.
Mel Chin: …compressing.
CM-U: Yeah.
CM-U: And then what about its installation on the wall?
Mel Chin: It's tilted like earth's tilted twenty-three degrees. And, again, I saw it low like this – it's sort of like we're on it, and we're looking at it, and we have control over it.
CM-U: Hmm. It's within our sphere.
Mel Chin: Right.
CM-U: Hmm.
CM-U: And what is – this is – we're moving on to the next…

Mel Chin: Um-hum.
CM-U: Are you ready to move on to Mars [Fixation and Desecration from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand, 1987]?
Mel Chin: Yes. Yes.
CM-U: Okay.
Mel Chin: Mars…
CM-U: Sort of in keeping again, let's stay on this topic of installation…
Mel Chin: Right.
CM-U: …coming from Mercury, to Earth, to Mars.
Mel Chin: Uh, Mars is fixation. It's __________ [word inaudible] fixation and desecration. Rudra, the red-faced gods of India was the – and Maruts is where Mars comes from. They were the storm gods, and they lay in their wake – they are hurricane gods that lay destruction in their path. Later on I hear that they become – by Mars, becomes agricultural deities. You see the linkages in the Sanskrit to the Roman times. And even in the name itself. But that was the selection for the red clay.
CM-U: So these pieces are all made of red clay?
Mel Chin: Yes. Those were collected by the – what is it, the Albert Thomas Convention Center [in Houston]? 'Cause I was traveling around…
CM-U: Yeah.
Mel Chin: …and I think I was finishing maybe this show. Wherever, I would collect materials as I would see it. And, you know, when you are born and raised in a certain area, you know what it has, and so you need it to get that together. And there was an attempt to get some Chinese red bole, too…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …to – some was thrown in there.
CM-U: So you did get some bole mixed in?
Mel Chin: Yeah.
CM-U: Now how thick are these pieces? And why are they set in?
Mel Chin: They are half of a club. These are two clubs. It was one long club that was broken up. There are two clubs of clay. So it's like one club split in half, and then cracked into these. The configuration is in the Chinese character fa, "to destroy." So this is a person being attacked by a halberd in the classical Chinese writing…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …and so I thought that would be the right configuration. Again, language and…
CM-U: The form of the language dictates…
Mel Chin: …gives me clues to that. The olive branches were chewed and masticated and pounded down, and then stuck into the clay. Again, the destruction of peace symbology, and drawing up [sounds like]. And then broken and cut. Fixation is where you violently [sounds like] – as depicted in alchemic texts, is the chopping of body parts and things, to fix Mercury from its...

Mel Chin: ...to keep it from escaping.The other consideration are these axe heads.
CM-U: Yeah.
Mel Chin: They have a long history. They are made out of a forged steel…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …and that being an assignment to Mars. And what I finally decided on about the shape and the design of it, was to go back to the original murder tool, or the original tool itself. And after I made these, it was nice to see in the Science Times that they had found human blood on a prehistoric axe.
CM-U: Hmm.
Mel Chin: So there is a possibility it was used then as a weapon against another human being, right? It was dated about a hundred thousand, but that's not that long ago.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: But it verified some of the feelings I had. It's locked into the axial configuration of Mars.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And – but which axe head to make? And I was looking at photos of axe heads from Olduvai Gorge [Tanzania] that [archaeologists] Mary and Louis Leakey had discovered.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And I waited until I came upon their favorite, which is this half. This is a composite. Then I added my half, which was this coming out of stone. And then of course this fits very well into your hand, too, so I like to see the evolution of a tool from a rock into a cutting edge. And then they are locked in, of course, combat, relegating their uselessness and maybe a person __________ [phrase inaudible]…
CM-U: So it's one piece?
Mel Chin: These are two axe heads that are – yeah, but they are – have been…
CM-U: But they are joined as one piece?
Mel Chin: They are joined as one piece. Locked at this point, and cutting in self [sounds like] into it…
CM-U: Making them totally useless.
Mel Chin: Right. They have a long history of – we started at Jim Love's studio, where we had some metal blanks, and we tried to __________ [word inaudible]
CM-U: Oh, yes. (laughs)
Mel Chin: We started. And Jim and I talked about it, and it was just metal blocks they had. And we started cutting it, and…
CM-U: This was in Jim's studio here in Houston?
Mel Chin: Jim's studio. When I first decided to make the axe heads, I said, "Well, go to a man who knows metal."
CM-U: Right.
Mel Chin: And mess with him. Metal [or meddle] with him. And we were – so we sat – well, we sat around and talked about it, and then we started cutting the blanks. It was incredibly difficult. It was like two-inch steel. Must have been hardened steel. Whatever. And eventually pinched the blade, and we stopped.
CM-U: It stopped.
Mel Chin: It stopped. It fixed itself at that point. And before we even started to get the shape cut out. So we just sat and looked at it for a long while, and then we really acted and tried to chisel it out and free the blade.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: 'Cause they were stuck. And after a long period of frustration, we just said, "That's it. We'll just try something…"
CM-U: So it's just remained that way?
Mel Chin: I think that band saw blade – that block still may be in his studio.
CM-U: (laughs)
Mel Chin: I think we both got very angry at that piece of metal. And it would show that Mars was gonna be a tough one.
CM-U: That stayed with you, though, clearly.
Mel Chin: Yes. And then it went to another artist, and I found some – maybe I took some more of the blanks, and I went to – or I got new blanks, slabs of steel…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …because I felt that maybe it was the type of steel. We talked about maybe it was this hardened steel, or __________ [word inaudible]. And I took it. First I went to another sculptor who had a cutting torch, and, you know – again, I wasn't very good at cutting metal, but, you know, decided to try. And it was Jack Massing, I think, at Lee Benner's studio there and…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And, you know, when I was going to take it home, I said, "Might as well cut away some of this stuff." So they did the best they could, and the torch wasn't powerful enough, and there was a lot of slag, and that was a mess. And then they ran out of gas. And so I – before I was taking off, I planned to visited another sculptor in town, Tim Glover. You go to your connections.
Mel Chin: "How much gas do you have?" And you pay him some money to buy more gas. And it was very difficult, just slicing the basic form out. So finally I had these ugly chunks of metal that were just not even carved down, and I took them home and waited a time. Then we went down to Barron's, and we sliced it some more to get it – because I __________ [word inaudible]…
Mel Chin: By that time...

Mel Chin: ...people were saying, "Why don't you cast them out of steel?" I said, "No, they have to be forged." You have to be at the hammer, and you have to forge those facets [sounds like]. The intent was to give it the look of stone. To bury its [sounds like] reality of steel. To load it with the concept of flint and weaponry that – 'cause it evolved out this into hafted weapons, you know. Again, it's about time and that…
Mel Chin: And, well, after we torched it and everything, then we started forging it; and there was not enough power behind our hammers, or not enough heat to even make the metal move the way it should move. It went to another blacksmith, and he tried. But eventually we decided that I'd have to find someone who had a power hammer, like a twenty-ton power hammer or something, to get these guys right. And so I made an appointment with a smith that Barron knew, and we worked together on that.
CM-U: In New York?
Mel Chin: This was in Washington.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And finally – he was very resistant to have me tell him what to do. He was a master blacksmith…
CM-U: This was the blacksmith? Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …but I told him it would be okay, that we'd just – like I told you, he said, "Well, I make thirty thousand dollar gates. I don't need to be working on this thing." And I said, "That's okay. That's why I'm here, you know. We'll be fine." And it was lot of work, and I would make more tools here. Like, "How do you get these little facets here?" So – and he couldn't figure it out.
CM-U: Hmm.
CM-U: 'Cause they are used to using certain tools and dies, and cutting – all the blacksmithing paraphernalia. And I said, "Well, we're going to get two rods, and we'll bend them into big loops and little loops, and we'll just heat it up, and I'll hold it, and you hit it with a hammer." Went back to the hand forging up.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: So all these were – I would look at the pattern and then try to translate it immediately into the hot metal…
CM-U: Hmm.
Mel Chin: …by stamping it. So it's like, "Hold it. Hit it. Next. Hit it." And so it was like the old-fashioned way. And the final attempt – again, treatment. It has to go back into the fire, and we did it so that it would start scaling.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And usually you brush off the scale, and you – but I wanted to return it to its stone-like equivalent. And there was a battle…
CM-U: There seems to be a luster on the surface, too. Is that…
Mel Chin: I used camellia oil, which is Japanese samurai sword – it comes from a certain pine, conifer, in Japan. I wanted to go and use…
CM-U: Did you get it from Japan?
Mel Chin: No, I got it from a store in – that these specialty tools and things in New York. And it was – I'm not going to mention the name because I don't believe in free advertisement unless they…
CM-U: Unless it's The Menil Collection.
Mel Chin: Uh, that's right!
(laughter)
Mel Chin: Yeah, I got it through The Menil Collection. No, but the oil was special because I thought that it should be treated with something that had – a special oil that was – had empathy with the tradition of metal.
CM-U: So even down to the final treatment it was thinking about materials and…
Mel Chin: Yeah. I was trying to be consistent in saying that, yes, these took so much effort. I probably have forgotten some of the steps, but…
CM-U: This raises a very interesting issue that we'll be talking about later, with regard to – in future preservations or treatments of this work.
Mel Chin: Uh-huh.
CM-U: Is the conservator also restricted to these materials because of their meaning? We needn't get into it now…
Mel Chin: Yeah.
CM-U: …but that's something, as we go through…
Mel Chin: Okay.
CM-U: …let's think about it.
Mel Chin: Thanks for the warning.

CM-U: Okay. Do you want to say more about the metal, or should we get into the actual placement of fa into the wall?
Mel Chin: Yeah. Well, the – yeah, we could go with the – yeah, that's – you know, they're done. So we can move into the placement. The bedding of these things was – I saw it also as the planetary scheme of the planets being tossed into this celestial vault. And bedding them in the wall was another way I wanted to get away from pedestals and sculpture. Say, "Well, why can't they just be sinking, or be part of the whole installation?"
CM-U: So you mean away from the traditional pedestal object format?
Mel Chin: Right. From, yes… There was a great problem when I first – it took a while to figure out, "how am I going to install the work?" And I liked the idea. And I guess where it really started was that this Dominican restaurant, that they were remodeling their place, that I would depend on it for their mofongo, which is a plantain and a meat mixture, mashed up, you know. A concoction. An alchemic brew for my sustenance.
CM-U: So you went there to drink that?
Mel Chin: No, to eat that.
CM-U: Oh, to eat that.
Mel Chin: It was just a real – actually it was just because it was two dollars a bowl. And it would fill you up, real good.
CM-U: It was good. (laughs)
Mel Chin: It was good. And they had remodeled their place, and I was stunned when I walked in because they had brought all these plates with, like, crabs, and crustaceans, and __________ [word inaudible], and bedded them in the wall and plastered around them. So all these things were bedded into the wall. And I said, from a very, you know, wallpaper or something kind of __________ [word inaudible], they had transformed their environment. I said, as I was staring into the mofongo, I said, "This is it. We will do away with pedestals. We'll do away with hangers. We'll just sink them into the wall as a – in their configurations, and according to their astronomical, compressed astronomical units – and they will appear randomized and stuck in there."
Mel Chin: And so the clue came from actually braving some of their food, and to – the way they do things, I guess, in the island. They must do it this way a lot. Like, they have a precious object, and rather than hanging it, they put a part of their decoration.
CM-U: It's wonderful.
Mel Chin: So that was the key to this type of installation because up to that point I was still worried about how to do it. And then it freed a lot of things up.
CM-U: But it was sort of a natural development in what you were doing with Belief/Punishment. Mercury was floating, too.
Mel Chin: Right.
CM-U: So…
Mel Chin: Well, Belief/Punishment still hung, and still away from the wall, but then when I started thinking like, "This is like the firmament."
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: And to, to – they are locked in there. They are floating, or by gravity (makes circular gesture with finger). Here, I thought that to actually just – like playing God, or whatever, and tossing them into the – bedding them would be fixing their position…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …as they are fixed in terms of their cycles and, you know, observation of the heavens historically. I thought that would be the way to go.

Mel Chin: So, anyway. So the toolmaking…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …process, the concern about the tool comes into, like, Jupiter [Circulation and Self Sacrifice from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand].
CM-U: This one is Jupiter.
Mel Chin: Circulation and Self Sacrifice.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: There is a very interesting parallel about this piece. At the top is – that's you'll see later – is bedded in tin, which is the metal equivalent for Jupiter, is the meteorologic patterns of wind velocity of the great red spot, the circulation gases that is the – what are they? The signs of Jupiter, if you look at it. So this is indeed – and an oak is – it's called the wood planet, Muxing in Chinese. So each of the planets is – Venus is the metal. Mars is the fire. Earth is earth, basically, in Chinese. And it's the wood star.
CM-U: Um-hum. So the wood is pine? No?
Mel Chin: This is oak. Red oak.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: Of course, red oak for red spots. And so it's the East/West concoction in the middle. Venus also is attuned to science and alchemic lore. It's multiplication, and circulation in the pelican, the vessel that they would watch the gases circle through. And that's the selection of the blown glass. It had to be crystal that was blown, and that was a very difficult process to have a tube this large. Because it extends beyond that (points at bottom of work)...

Mel Chin: ...it is one of the most difficult processes in blowing glass because it freezes about right here (points at center of work).
CM-U: Hmm. So, again, did you go to someone to blow this glass?
Mel Chin: Well, yes. I went to the New York Experimental [Glass] Workshop [New York]. But what was more important is to develop the mold to blow into.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: And after consulting with most glassblowers, they said, "Well, you would probably need a three hundred pound block of cherry soaked for, like, a year. Then you have to carve this form out, and then – or you can make it out of clay. Because these are traditional or whatever materials you blow glass into. Because the glass will – you have to have that.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: You can blow it in wet cherry molds. You know, the carbon in the water forms a layer where it doesn't destroy the glass. But I remembered glassblowing from college in – not that I was any good at it, but I loved the idea that you used wet newspaper and just roll it between the blowpipe and form it by your hands. There was a connection. And it would be about this thick of wet newspaper. And actually the carbon, and again, the water vapor forms the barrier. It wouldn't burn you. Because you are talking about something about two thousand degrees or something like that.
CM-U: Wow!
Mel Chin: And it's a wonderful way of working with glass. And I said, "Well, that's what I'll do. I'll get a portable mold to challenge these people's ideas about molds, and also work with some assignment [sounds like] of tin, because I use a tin mold. I called it the "full metal jacket." It's a full mold for Jupiter, but as FMJ it's a full metal jacket, or it became. It's a tin mold lined with a quarter inch of newspaper soaked in, like, wheat paste – which is highly saturated with water – and just laid in with a squeegee, sheet by sheet, till it was built up. It takes about four hours to lay up one mold that was good for probably just – this experiment took twelve sessions.
CM-U: Hmm.
Mel Chin: Twelve hours to learn how to blow it. But it became this portable mold that I could carry around. Word traveled quickly in the glass world that someone was carrying around a mold that was a challenge. Because started at the New York Experimental Workshop, and you'd have to – you know, glassblowers are hot dogs. They've got to show how big and bad, you know, they can blow. So I would __________ [word inaudible] find hot shot – hot dog.
CM-U: Oh. (laughs)
Mel Chin: "Can you do this?" And I was not any M. C. Hammer, but, you know, it was a whole 'nother thing. That was before his time. But anyway, the mold was a tin form that would – it was lined with paper and drilled through for the escape – and then you would clamp it shut, and the glass would fall through. As far as – as predicted, you know, they could only blow about three feet, and that was it before it would freeze and stop.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: So I heard there was a Wheaton Glass Industries had a school. When they had plenty – and they'd run out of glass because, you know, this takes an incredible amount, a thirty-pound lump of glass off the end of the pipe. You have to be very strong. And it was a two person – three person job to get it not only in the mold, out of the mold, blow it, and then pick it up and lay it into the annealing oven within, like, seconds before it would chill and shatter. So you had all these time constraints to get it right.
Mel Chin: So why was it necessary to make it out of glass again, the pelican is this form, double shaped form where you could see the circulation of gases. And the idea of the pelican was self-sacrificing by pecking into its heart to feed its young.
CM-U: To feed it – um-hum.
Mel Chin: Of course it was regurgitating as it was pecking its crop [sounds like]. But it would seem like it was pulling its heart out. And it became the ultimate Christian symbol. But they also saw it through the glass the gases giving up its stuff to come back into itself, you know.
Mel Chin: So….But the mold was traveling with me, and the whole shape was – it's the form of the javelin, the connection with silk is the electrical-producing capacity of Jupiter, two and a half times the energy it receives from the sun. And, plus, silk would make the connection of the circulation. There's two levels of glass here.
CM-U: Silk and…
Mel Chin: Glass. It would make electricity. So there's a…
CM-U: And the pecking of the soul – of the heart is the center…
Mel Chin: The heart. Also, this is placed according to where my heart is.
CM-U: Where your heart is, in terms of height.
Mel Chin: Yeah. And it's about the size of my – the inner one, it's the size of my fist…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …which would be about…
CM-U: And how did you break it? Peck into it?
Mel Chin: Oh, this was blasted with sandblasting.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: Because to cut this would have been impossible after it was made. It was a kind of – it had to be filled full of newspaper, and then all covered – or the spray, you know, the sand would go everywhere. Then unpacked afterwards. But anyway, the mold – going back to just making the glass itself – this portable mold, I'd carry it down to – went down in a van. Borrowed a van. Went down to these guys at Wheaton, and it took two glassblowers – we had to work twelve hours in the development of the bubble. The shape of the bubble, and the coordination of the gravity so that it – to watch, to clamp it before you thought it was time, to allow it to seep all the way down to the bottom…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …and not get too thin and pear-shape out. All these things you see in glass. Just to understand the dynamics of the glass, and to do it, and unclamp it, and get it into the annealer. It became like – we did it – we did so many tests, and so many failures. But eventually...
CM-U: Hmm.

Mel Chin: ...we were able to get three out of twelve hours of work.
Mel Chin: And when it was done, the next day we pulled them out of the annealer [sounds like], I drove back, and what was nice was, driving back on the highway, in the middle of the road was a javelin. The sign from above.
CM-U: Bizarre.
Mel Chin: I didn't – I never – who knows where it came from?
CM-U: How bizarre…
Mel Chin: It was – well, we stopped. I picked up the javelin. I use it in my lectures. I wire it up, and it comes out of the heavens, you know. I push a button, and it shoots out and scares everybody. But that's supposed to.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: But it was – because it was related to this piece, a little like it was telling me – that's not getting into any New Age beliefs, but it was just a sign from a good toss. But the – so, materials, what's interesting is to know about the self-sacrifice aspect…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …is, Jupiter also circulates this energy and feeds a spark across the universe off of its own system into its own planet, Io, its moon, and fills it full of its electrical discharge. So there is this ancient idea of sacrificing and giving one's energy to its children, and then the planetary bodies have its own way of – they couldn't have known that, but it just happens to be that way.
Mel Chin: The tool that I made to do this was a pelican head made out of – it was a car spring that I carved into a beak, and I would hold it against my body and peck it like this.
CM-U: So the tool was made specifically for the construction of this piece?
Mel Chin: Oh, yes.
CM-U: Do you consider the tool a part of the piece?
Mel Chin: I miss it a lot. I gave it as a peace offering to the gallery that sponsored…
CM-U: Uh-huh. I see.
Mel Chin: …the piece. But the – I don't consider it a part, but I feel it was – it is a part of it already by the marks it made.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: I thought that, in order to get this pecking idea, I couldn't – I had to, I guess psychologically make a link with the animal itself. So I made this tool with a pelican head and just a sharp thing. And I did it in a way – it was very difficult, because, you know, you get into this ritual of making things, or – I don't if it's ritual or whatever, but it was something to – 'cause I knew it would not look right if I were to fake it.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: There was even talk about me shooting it with a gun. I mean, there's all these things happen, but I said, "No, the only way to make it is to be the pelican. Be the animal, and get into this thing of pecking and pecking. And all these fibers will eventually fall apart." And it took a while, but it eventually got there.

CM-U: What about the silk itself? It's Chinese silk?
Mel Chin: Yeah. I wanted to keep with the Chinese – again, the texts were giving me, from the oyster, through the iron, to – all of the texts from both cultures were giving me assignments – a bill of materials. And to use Chinese silk, I thought, would be proper in this mixture of the Western style glass…
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: …blowing, to make the discharge or the potentiality factor to me real.
CM-U: I see that, maybe as a result of travel, or shipping, or packing, or whatever, that some of the – there's fallout from some of the wood into the silk…
Mel Chin: Um-hum.
CM-U: …is that something…
Mel Chin: That's perfectly okay with me.
CM-U: Yeah.
Mel Chin: I mean, I think…
CM-U: That wasn't originally that way [sounds like]?
Mel Chin: It was – the cones were higher too, as well, but, you know, you fall – this works its way down, too. The one thing I worry about is this glass touching the other glass in travel…
CM-U: Breaking it.
Mel Chin: …and it would shatter. But it's held up quite well. And, to me, this is also a sinking heart. It's descending.
CM-U: Hmm.
Mel Chin: It's pounding itself into itself. Again, the notion of the spear, or the lightning bolt being his signature. Or that particular god's signature.

CM-U: Well, in terms of the cutting of the glass, you were saying, you know, how in this central area – were you using the same kind of cutting on this piece? Or…
Mel Chin: On Saturn [Deception and Digestion from The Operation of the Sun Through the Cult of the Hand], there was – this was rawhide. And, you know, it's the – these are the five – it's Saturn eating its children, and the stone being Jupiter.
CM-U: Right.
Mel Chin: This skin, this lead has been burned. It's cut, but also, if you look at its fingerprint, whatever…
CM-U: Yes. Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …it's based on the thermal temperatures of the planet itself. I took sheets of lead, and I carefully used a torch and burned each, pooled each, using heat to put the temperature of its skin on. And then these cuts are lined up with the Gray's Anatomy's diagram of the veins of the human face.
CM-U: Huh.
Mel Chin: And then it's like, well, it's a left/right brain kind of thing 'cause you have to connect all the veins together to get – and there was a special system. It's wood over – lead over wood, a wood frame; and then there's a metal clamp to make the jaw come down and bite on the stone. If you look way in there, there you'll see a very crude mechanism to make the teeth come down. Actually trap it.
Mel Chin: The cutting here, I used a chainsaw.
CM-U: And this material is…
Mel Chin: Rawhide.
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: From – probably around the neck, or whatever, of an animal. The rawhide also is linked to Saturn. Also is the drumbeat in the Chinese calendar of a clock of the cycles, and it's one of the – it is the bull god. Where the god actually gets rid of the __________ [word inaudible] and makes a big drum out of the great celestial bull. And so there is a relationship – why rawhide.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And then the stone was a fieldstone that I found that seemed very baby-like to me at the time. And the wool here is related to – I read – Graves mentions how even the Omphalos Stone in Greece, the marking stone, the navel, or the marking stone, is still anointed with oil and wool to this day.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And I, "Why?" you know. But it's a relationship to the cloth that was – the swaddling cloth that was wrapped around the stone to feed to Saturn. You know, the mythology is another aspect of the piece.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And the oil was probably some kind of laurel oil or whatever that was toxic, to purge the stone as well.

Mel Chin: Now, all that aside, you know, the hide – then here, I guess the most fragrant stuff I could find was the hide glue.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: This was probably another one of those "see and smell" pieces at the opening, but it's all dried now.
CM-U: So you applied the hide glue on after it had taken its shape?
Mel Chin: The top of – well, it was cut…
CM-U: Or it was still pliable at this point?
Mel Chin: Yeah. This was all stuck together. I cut these things, and tortured the edge, and then bound them together with the hide glue actually. And, using the wool as a reinforcement.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: And then, when they are all – the five skin, or the five children – are put together, I would stick it in and…
CM-U: What about – maybe you can get this later on camera, but there's kind of flaking here of the glue separating from the hide. Is that what it is?
Mel Chin: Yeah. That happens. Sometimes also you'll see this rock coming apart. I mean, it'll actually come – flake around here. I've re- – I put more hide glue on it.
CM-U: Is the hide – did you put the hide glue on as a protector, or just because it was – it was a binder?
Mel Chin: As a glue, and also as a – it was more as a glue, and I wanted to keep with the hide…
CM-U: But more as a glue, as an adhesive to hold the…
Mel Chin: As an adhesive. But also to make something like the stew of the skin.
CM-U: Um-hum. So it would be – in the future, it would be advisable to replace it?
Mel Chin: I have looked at this a lot and thought long about this, and I think that, as it flakes, and it falls apart, I probably wouldn't be that distressed. Because some have already come off already. Because this is meant to be, you know, the rock salt…
CM-U: Devouring.
Mel Chin: Yeah. It is being poisoned.
CM-U: Um-hum.
Mel Chin: I see this as a – the lead, of course, Saturn poisoning, and all that. And even the blood, the salt in the wounds here. The – psychologically speaking, I wanted this piece to be very active.
CM-U: So, other than structural reasons for it coming apart, there'd be no aesthetic reason to…
Mel Chin: I can't think of any.
CM-U: …kind of revive or reform the glue in any way?
Mel Chin: Yeah. I think it would be very difficult, actually.
CM-U: It's very strong this way, I must say.
Mel Chin: Yeah.
CM-U: I mean, it really moves you to see this kind of breaking up into decaying…
Mel Chin: Um-hum. I think that the hide glue itself becomes another skin or something…
CM-U: Uh-huh.
Mel Chin: …that is coming apart. And…
CM-U: There's definitely a feeling of that here. Is the hide glue just on the top?
Mel Chin: No, I think it is some – it's in between, as well.
CM-U: It's in between? Okay.
Mel Chin: Yeah.
CM-U: All right. Is there anything else that we ought to focus on with this one?
Mel Chin: No. I think that's – that's enough of that, I guess.