Tool Critic I don’t know much about art, but I know what tools I like. Therefore, the big
book my friend Tracy gave me, Tools as Art, The Hechinger Collection by
Pete Hamill, reached out and grabbed my creative muse by the throat and rattled
her until a Swiss Army knife fell out of her pocket.
I’ve always thought I had a singularly peculiar perspective on tools,
imagining faces, critters, and alien beings among the wrenches, pliers, and
drills at the hardware store. And not just when I was drunk, either. Then my
friend Tr� Arenz and I decided to do a book about women and tools. We
only got far enough for us to realize it was probably a stupid idea and for
Tr� to sketch up a couple of illustrations. Lo and behold, her drills
were devilish and her hammers were smiling. I was not alone in my
anthropomorphic view of tools.
Judging from the art collection amassed by John Hechinger, owner of the
hardware chain Home Center, this emotional response to tools is not only not
rare, it’s as common as the 10-penny nail. The 167 artists represented in this
book destroy the notion of a tool as an inanimate object. Arman groups hundreds
of shiny, silver visegrips into School of Fishes and for once I can say,
I get it! I get it. Leonard Koscianski’s oil pastel of Needlenose Pliers lends this humble tool the architectural grandeur of the pyramids. Berenise
Abbott’s 1938 photograph, Hardware Store, is a jam-packed visual feast
that makes the Where’s Waldo illustrations look minimalist.
While the visions of some of the works are less than stirring, the sheer
craftsmanship alone makes them laudable. These folks don’t just like the way
tools look, they know how to use them. James Drake created Tool Room,
replete with welder’s torches and face mask, anvil, grinder, fan, and more,
from sheet steel. A wood lathe fashioned from maple (I get it! I get it!) by
Allan Adams is an incredible feat of carving and illusion. Even the electrical
cord, which looks good enough to shock you, is carved from maple.
The ultimate compliment I can bestow on artistic creations is to copy them or
at least try, all the while mumbling, “Gee, I wish I’d thought of this.” So
don’t be surprised next time you come to my house to find three rusted
plumber’s wrenches as legs on my salad bowl in a homage to Chris Collicott’s
Wrench Bowl or a xylophone made of hammer handles � la
Linda Thern-Smith’s Phoenix.
In the words of the author, “Equipped with tools and art, driven by
intelligence and imagination, fear and desire, the need for power and the need
for joy, civilized people permanently altered the face and the rhythm of the
world…. Across the centuries, human-made tools have been used to create
unimaginable horror. But they have also produced what might be humanity’s only
true redemption: the mysteries, humors, and astonishments of art.” Even I never
saw all that at the hardware store.
Hey, don’t y’all want to save yourself from gurgling reviews of art books
by a hick like me? Then ask me some questions. Hurry, hurry, before I kill
again. Suzebe@aol.com or PO Box 49066, Austin, TX 78765
This article appears in April 4 • 1997 and April 4 • 1997 (Cover).