Artist Response One: Dave Cole

The artist that I chose to write about was Dave Cole. I found his work to be very interesting and thought provoking. I was first led to his work by the fact that he was into knitting and sewing. My wife is into knitting and it is something that I started doing within the past year. I thought the video of Cole making the American flag using the two large construction excavators and the large poles was very thought provoking. The video showed how he was able to make a large American flag using the excavators and poles along with a bucket truck that he was in and how he had to keep feeding the cloth over the poles. 

The piece that I shared a picture of is a work that he did in 2005 according to his website, www.davecoledavecole.com. In this piece he took green toy soldiers and was able to put them together to make a rectangle canvas. At that point it appears he took acrylic paint and painted the soldiers in the colors of red, white and blue to ultimately make a large American flag.

Five words to describe his work both from the video and the picture I posted are:

1. Patriotic

2. Industrial

3. Political

4. Crafy

5. Imaginative

 

I thought of industrial because when I watched the video I thought as thought he was trying to show how big and industrial America is. How we are big, bold and how we could make anything.

After reading Karen Kurczynski’s article on Dave Cole my initial thoughts of Cole and his work did not really change. I think it is evident by looking at his work he is trying to speak out through his work about war, America and how the two go hand in hand. The notion that his work is politically motivated was not a surprise at all.