Canal Street Conspiracy:
A Happenstance Collaboration of a Woodworker and a Potter

Fifth Element exhibition 2002. This exhibition is an investigation of objects for celebration, both simple (a morning cup of coffee) and complex (stacks of tumblers for a pot luck dinner). These objects of are born from the collaboration between a furniture maker and a potter: a merger of materials, personality, and creative process.

On Canal Street, in Rochester, there is an odd warehouse built in the 1940's. This industrial building is located between three sets of railroad tracks and the highway. The factory has made spaghetti, ladies shoes, and Xerox machines. It has slowly developed into a space for small businesses, artist studios and live-in lofts.

On the second floor of this dubious building are a wood shop and a potter's studio. Through meeting in hallways and elevators, an urban woodworker and utilitarian potter formed a conspiracy to make beautiful objects. It is from discussion of the love of materials and commitment to the daily act of making objects that this exhibition developed.

The common thread in this work is the idea of revealing. The pottery and boxes reveal themselves to us through use and display. Their portable nature reveals the importance of personal ritual. The objects are reminiscent of common things (wooden lunch box, figurative vases) to allow us to connect the work with things in our lives: a familiarity, a habit, a personal conspiracy to delight in the simple rituals of ones own day. Thank you to the 5th Element Gallery for their tremendous patience and support of this exhibition.