The oxidation of iron, or rusting, is a natural progression of material with environment. In the rust of steel, a specific location and time of that atmosphere is recorded, similar to the way light is recorded in contact to silver-gelatin film. The rust in its pattern, color, and texture, becomes an index of the atmospherical time which has passed specific to location.
Seven sets of two rolled sheets of mild carbon steel were sent to seven different locations: San Francisco CA, Meadow Ranch WY, Omaha NE, Chicago Il, Ann Arbor MI, Springfield VT, and New York City. The arced sheets in upward receiving stands collected the weather, time, and atmosphere of each location. The steel sheet becomes an artifact specific to place. It becomes that place.
The steel collectors were placed out in the atmosphere of each of the seven locations to catch “time”. As the earth turns, time is the rain, wind, snow,or sun, specific to each location. The Time and Place Collectors existed in each specific place for the controlled period of one lunar month. (new moon to new moon: August 20 – September 18, ending on the autumnal equinox of 2009)
Each set was then mailed back; tacked together; and is shown with photo documentation illuminating context and place. Gathering the weathered rust of each location, each steel Time and Place Collector becomes each specific place in a current non-place (the gallery).
