The Artist
Don Henley is a retired community college instructor and active artist/maker. His academic training is in anthropology and art history with over four decades of experience working with ceramics, jewelry, wood and metals.
Don has lived on four continents and draws heavily on his life experience and boundless curiosity for inspiration. His art is motivated by a love of process and finding innovative ways to use and incorporate sustainable and repurposed materials for his work.
Don has resided in Encinitas, California since 1978 and maintains a working studio at his residence.
©Copyright Notice:
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All materials, images, text, associated with this collective work are protected by Untied States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior, express written permission of the owner. You may not alter or remove any copyright or other notices from copies of this content.
The Collection
The idea for the Alternative Slice Collection as a work of conceptual art emerged in late 2017, around the same time as the trend of creating selective and bias-confirming “Alternative Facts” to validate a preferred Truth started gaining traction in popular culture.
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The core thesis of this collective work springs from the well-fertilized ground of inventive speculation. It blends verifiable facts with plausible assumptions shaded by nuanced absurdities that, when combined, create a bountiful crop of imaginative and conjectural probabilities.
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Each piece in the collection is accompanied by an abstract of alleged origin and ownership in the form of an abbreviated auction catalog entry from the H. O. Amano Auction House LLC, a fictitious estate auction company that fronts for the artist.
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While all sculptures in the collection were created to fulfill their nominal purpose (the slicing of pizza) the descriptive provenance accompanying each piece freely co-mingles (mostly) authentic events/places with (sometimes) verifiable historical and fictional characters drawn from the public domain and the artist’s imagination.
As with any Alternative Fact worthy of its truth-quotient, discreet elements of veracity and fantasy are blended with varying proportions into each story arc. It is left to onlookers to sift out what is verifiable, hypothetical, or out-and-out prevarication.
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It is the viewer who must examine these Alternative Facts according to their personal scruples regarding a re-imagined view of established, fact-checked, objective reality. The interested observer is cordially invited to select a favorite slicer from the collection and create their own version of “Truthiness” to match.
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All pizza cutters in this collection were fabricated by the artist using basic metal and woodworking techniques. The materials are predominantly tropical hardwoods, brass, copper, and stone gleaned from surplus and sustainable resources as well as modified and repurposed objet trouvé (found objects). Some components, such as lasers and rotary cutting blades were acquired from commercial sources and modified as required.
Each cutter can be used to slice pizza with varying levels of efficiency and functionality, some more so than others. However, they are presented here primarily for the sake of amusement, and as a cheeky test of the quality and magnitude of one's taste for alternative facts.
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Individual works are not for sale however, serious offers for the entire collection will be considered.
For Inquiries contact the artist: Don Henley