Lisa And Scott Cylinder: Transpositions + New Work By Susie Ganch

Artist list

Lisa and Scott Cylinder, Susie Ganch

Transpositions began with a discarded clarinet. Disassembled and repurposed, the deconstructed clarinet merged into a body of work that transformed a once aural implement into a visual one. Lisa and Scott Cylinder's Transpositions is the result of this exploration.

Husband and wife team Lisa and Scott Cylinder began working together in 1988 after graduating from Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For twenty-two years they have collaborated from their studio in Oley, Pensilvania, to make one-of-a-kind and small production pieces. Included in publications such as Metalsmith and Art Jewelry Today, Lisa and Scott Cylinder have gained recognition and awards for their collaborative work. They are included in permanent collections at the Racine Art Museum in Racine, Wisconsin and the Museum of Contemporary Arts & Design in New York City.

Lisa and Scott Cylinder Artists' Statement:
Our love of music has directed us to this exploration of musical instruments. We are fascinated by Clarinets, Violins, Saxophones, etc. as complex tools capable of producing sound. We obtain damaged and discarded instruments and harvest their parts on the basis of their materials, forms and quality. Often, because of their prior use, these parts possess inherent purpose or meaning.

Starting with already well-crafted objects, most of these instruments are themselves hand-made and assembled with high-quality workmanship and materials. They carry with them a rich history of use: played, tarnished, worn, repaired, loved and hated. From practice room to concert stage we are left only to imagine the stories each instrument could convey.

The deconstruction and re-invention of musical instrument parts is the impetus for our ideas and the forms that they take. With a historical reverence, our goal is to cleverly reinterpret these parts and re-integrate them within our Post-modern Compositions. We are therefore "Transposing" the musical instruments, once an aural tool, into a visual work, much like changing a piece of music from one key to another.

Fascinated by the molecular makeup of objects, Susie Ganch's work is made up of multiple interconnected units. Ganch uses traditional materials of silver, steel, and copper, and applies color to her work with sugar-fired enamel. Each interdependent element, or "molecule," vibrates with movement and "offers us the opportunity see and feel what we are made of."

Susie Ganch attended California College of the Arts in Oakland, California, and lived in California until 2004, when she began teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. A 2007 recipient of the Virginia Commonwealth University Faculty Research Grant, her work has been featured in Metalsmith, the Style Weekly Fashion Quarterly, and San Francisco Downtown Magazine. Susie Ganch's work is included in the collections of the Asheville Art Museum in Asheville, North Carolina, and John Crutchfield and Artemis Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.

Susie Ganch Artist's Statement:
I am driven by the idea that the web of life is an inter-connected system. From molecules to atoms everything is structurally made of the same "stuff". I construct forms that are comprised of multiple interdependent parts. In the piece Rest, the suspension system will collapse when out of balance and when each steel cable is not properly engaged. The "molecules", rings, and collected bits offer us the opportunity see and feel what we are made of. A bracelet of "molecules" sliding over the hand is a glimpse into what that might actually feel like, and a necklace of rubies extending off the neck suggests the view an electron has as it travels through the air and into a body.