(2000) FUNISM

13 “Resentment” 2001
Dollar bills, pine box 37 x 18” (edition of 3)

This was the first piece I did. There was no show planned at the time I did this piece; the thought just came to me and I made it. At the time, I was thinking about America’s generosity, regardless of what percentage of gross domestic product we share, the actual dollar amount of U.S. foreign aid is staggering. This piece is about what we send out in the world and how it comes back to us, it’s about jealousy and its next generation: resentment. When I first finished this piece, I called it “Pétard,” as in the phrase “hoisted by your own pétard.” That what I felt had just happened to America.

The noose used about 180 dollar bills. Everybody asks. I folded them in half lengthwise, folded each edge in to the middle and slipped the folded dollar bills together and into each other, overlapping and underlapping by about an inch and a half, and used this as one strand in what became a braid of dollar bills. Once the braid was done (about 60 feet of braid), I folded it over on itself and twisted it round and round until it resembled a rope. Once the rope was complete, I tied it into a noose, complete with the traditional 13 loops.

When I was a kid, my sister used to know how to make a weaving out of chewing gum wrappers. This noose has reminded a lot of people of that craft.