Ed Pennebaker Artist Statement

Collaborations, Conversations & Chaos

Ed Pennebaker and the 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak (Atkins-Clinton-Mountain View-Highland tornado, the longest single tornado track in Arkansas on record, 122 miles long)

The Chaos Series is inspired by my move to Clinton, Arkansas in combination with the current political climate.  The property where our house and studio are located is on the edge of the path of the 2008 tornado that devastated many Clinton houses and businesses.  I have picked up a lot of debris from our property and some of it is very interesting and sculptural.  Some very large metal pieces still hang in the trees on our property.  I see the series as a collaboration and conversation with nature relating to our troubled times of climate change and political divisiveness.

Growing up in Kansas I can remember watching a tornado form high in the sky from our backyard then going to the street out front to see the funnel come to the ground and move northeast where it eventually hit the next town north of us.  We visited that town a few days later to see houses torn open like doll houses with splintered wood and debris everywhere.  Another memory is my great uncle Andy’s farm that was hit by tornado, picking up his barn and moving it over one foot, killing cattle, and downing many large hundred year old cottonwood trees.

Everyone’s  life is impacted by chaos occasionally or more often for some.  Things we have no control over like economic or political unrest, weather, accidents, or health issues either physical or mental change us slightly or sometimes dramatically.  The evidence of the changes remains not only in the physical objects that go through these turmoils but in many people's lives both economically and psychologically.