The Assemblagist

While in grad­u­ate school, I often read cre­ative non-​fiction to bet­ter fix­ate the details of an his­toric event within the con­text of its phys­i­cal and timely occur­rence. My field of study, 19^th cen­tury Amer­i­can his­tory, pro­vided me with inspi­ra­tion for many of my assemblages.

This week I work on “regions of opti­cal power”. These boxes range in size from 3“x4” to a large circa 1930s suit­case with a wood frame and can­vas exte­rior. My mother-​in-​law gifted me with the suit­case which has a mar­velous flat sur­face (prob­a­bly about 18″ x 24″ or a bit more) — perfect for a table top. I’ve enlisted the aid of our new across-​the-​street neigh­bor Jimmy who will install car­riage bolts to the leg assem­bly base of the suit­case. Legs from a cof­fee table built by my father in the 1970s will serve the foun­da­tion for this suit­case table. Inside the case, the divine place­ment of ele­men­tal objects will begin.

The regions of opti­cal power boxes began when Momma went into the nurs­ing home. The object is to give her hand-​size or eas­ily held pieces to con­sider. At 91 years of age, she offers me detailed insights and a unique per­spec­tives as she con­sid­ers each piece. It occurred to me, early this morn­ing, that her demen­tia cre­ates an “ephemeric mind” able to delve into fleet­ing mem­ory bits and per­ma­nent rec­ol­lec­tions of her past. Her inter­pre­ta­tion or dis­cus­sions about my assem­blages reminds me of the “about” state­ment of the Ephemera: The­ory and Pol­i­tics in Orga­ni­za­tion journal:

ephemera [the jour­nal] coun­ters the cur­rent hege­mo­niza­tion of social the­ory and oper­ates at the bor­ders of orga­ni­za­tion stud­ies in that it con­tin­u­ously seeks to ques­tion what orga­ni­za­tion stud­ies is and what it can become. ”

My work­ing men­tal state reflects my per­sonal social the­o­ries. I see who I am in that def­i­n­i­tion. An Assem­blag­ist cre­ates: art that inter­prets what orga­ni­za­tion is and what is can become.

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