Small Potatoes is a multi-media sculptural installation that addresses the relationship between artist and their subject matter. The dichotomy between the artist’s intensity of purpose and the forces that affect the destiny of individuals and society demonstrates a sense of futility in the artist’s ability to bring about change through art.

The installation takes the form of theatre tableaux.  Housed within a self-contained space, 40’ x 40’, the space itself and objects within convey a theatre-like atmosphere. Centered in the theatre is a stage.  The actors on stage take the form of potato sack figures, the “small potatoes” whose condition is at once elevated under the spotlight and at the same time pulled into the backstage machinery by a large wooded spool-like structure.  Manipulating this machinery, and hence the objects on the stage, is a seated figure.  In front of the stage there are seven musician-like figures appearing to be disconnected from the audience and stage.  In the far corner of the theatre is a desk taken from the artist’s studio.  It is heaped with the raw material from which is generated the objects on stage.  The sound component was composed and performed by seven local musicians for this installation.  It is self-absorbing, dissonant and chaotic.