Sugar:: James W. Goedert
What I’ve often learned from one of several personas was to help divert my habitual thought patterns and think “outside my box” or pop a “mental wheelie” out of the neural ruts caused by negative thought patterns.
Calling upon the age old recipe of participation and humor, two very precious commodities, Stan Danley’s Stress Ball Stand puts my thoughts back in a box, or food truck… By asking others to contribute their named stresses or anxieties as payment, the piece represents and returns them in a more digestible form.
Special thanks to: Ursa Eyer for assistance with fabrication, Robin Levy for donation of materials, Leslie Selting for the use of her space, and all others who helped in the production of this work.
My work ranges from joystick controlled drawing machines created by my alter ego Stan Danley to wall size murals depicting the amount of minutes available in a day, created by my lower brow left hand pseudonym of Toby Franklin.
I first moved to New Orleans from Omaha, NE in 2005 to attend Loyola University after spending a year working and traveling. The act of travel and conversation have always informed my work in that they allow me to engage in personally and professionally uncharted territories while considering work through the lens of others’ life experiences. The presence of Stan Danley and Toby Franklin allow me to create and perform without focusing on the academic or professional taboo of diverting from a set practice or aim.
My professional life has covered a multitude of categories ranging from craftsperson, to business owner, to web developer, to educator. After finishing school I was hired as a millworker and furniture maker but simultaneously pursued trainings each summer in technology and the arts. This eventually led to a one year fellowship in France between 2015-2016 at the Foundation de Coubertin south of Paris where he was accepted as their yearly American recipient and trained in a number of traditional crafts and design fields.
Since 2016 I have received several certifications in the field of software engineering and continue to teach this trade in a part time capacity. The interplay between this variety of fields is what keeps me engaged and in the best of scenarios allows me to do the same in my work.
