Sculpture and Constructions - Allen Schill

Suspended wooden sculpture inspired by the structure of DNA.

Double Helix, 1991-92. 43" x 6 5/8" x 4 1/2" ca. Wood, acrylic paint, thread, glue, wire. (id#431/1455)

Original hanging sculpture, unique piece, inspired by the structure of DNA. Collection of Stefania Levi.

Double Helix, 1991-92. 43" x 6 5/8" x 4 1/2" ca. (detail) Wood, acrylic paint, thread, glue, wire. (id#431/1455)

Original hanging sculpture, unique piece, inspired by the structure of DNA. Collection of Stefania Levi.

Double Helix II, 1991-92. 45 3/4" x 6 3/4" x 6 1/2". Broomstick, dowels. (id#1458)

Original hanging sculpture, unique piece, inspired by the structure of DNA.

Suspended wooden sculpture inspired by molecular structure.

Molecule II, 1991-92. 32 9/16" x 7 1/2" x 7 1/2". Broomstick, dowels. (id#1457)

Original hanging sculpture, unique piece, inspired by molecular structure.

Molecule I, 1991-92. 30" x 4" x 4". Broomstick, dowels. (id#1459)

Original hanging sculpture, unique piece, inspired by molecular structure.

A model of an imagined missile, incorporating elements of modern technology and terminology with Leonardo da Vinci&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s designs for weapons. Also a polemic.

Leonardo’s Smart-Enough Guided Semi-Ballistic Turbine Hate-Seeking Instant Karma Voodoo Arrow Missile, with Booster Stage, 2022. 93,7 cm height, base 22,5 x 19,0 cm. A model based on a still-undiscovered drawing by Da Vinci, and a prayer dedicated to the quick and nasty end to our new century’s Vlad the Impaler. (id#1462)

There's much more on this work - such as details that can't be made out here, and a great deal of commentary - in my blog, The Second Stone, in an article entitled like the work: https://www.allenschill.com/thesecondstone/leonardo-s-turbine-voodoo-missile

Leonardo’s Smart-Enough Guided Semi-Ballistic Turbine Hate-Seeking Instant Karma Voodoo Arrow Missile, with Booster Stage (detail of turbine), April-November 2022. 93,7 cm height, base 22,5 x 19,0 cm. A model based on a still-undiscovered drawing by Da Vinci, and a prayer dedicated to the quick and nasty end to our new century’s Vlad the Impaler. (id#1462)

There's much more on this work - such as details that can't be made out here, and a great deal of commentary - in my blog, The Second Stone, in an article entitled like the work: https://www.allenschill.com/thesecondstone/leonardo-s-turbine-voodoo-missile

A model of a tower, perhaps of apartments with balconies, made of scrap wood.

Endless Tower, April 2022. 85,3 cm height, 22,5 x 19,0 cm base. Scrap wood. A nod to Constantin Brâncuși's Endless Column. (id#1463)

The vertical element is composed of two pieces of wood with deep notches made at intervals to accommodate a series of shelves with adjustable height (the former purpose of the wood).

Constantin Brancusi&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s iconic sculpture, Endless Tower (Version I), of 1918.

Endless Tower, Version I, 1918, Constantin Brâncusi. Brâncusi returned to this subject many times over the years. This version, the first, is only 6' 8" high (about 203 cm,); other versions are much taller. I always imagine Brâncusi as a sort of modern Hephaestos, the Greek god, blacksmith and armor-maker to the other gods (and to Achilles), always sweaty and covered with the dust and grime of his art, a man somehow inseparable from his materials. In the same way I identify with Joseph, the famous carpenter of the Gospel, husband of Mary and stepfather to Jesus, known in his time as Yeshua ben-Yusef. Someone who works with his hands.

Shore Bird, April 2022. 44 cm height, 5,2 cm diameter base. Piece from chair back, dowel, wooden cylinder. (id#1464)

A nod to Constantin Brâncuși's amazing Bird in Space. I hope to have given the figure something of the attitude of a bird perched on the sand or on a post, alert, gazing out to sea.

Constantin Brancusi&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s marvelous and ethereal sculpture, Bird in Space, of 1928.

Bird in Space, 1928, by Constantin Brâncusi. I had forgotten that Brancusi used the same short cylinder as a base as I used for my Shore Bird. I had to weight mine slightly with a piece of heavy bolt underneath for stability's sake, even though visually it seemed just right.

An oversized pencil, a replica of a small bowling alley pencil still in my possession, made with a pointed garden stake left over from a job. Portrait of Allen Schill by Stefania Levi.

The Big Islip Bowl Bowling Alley Pencil, 2020. 147 length x 10 cm diameter, ca. 6 kg. (id#1460) Portrait of Allen Schill, with pencil, by Stefania Levi.

I wasn't born in a bowling alley, but I was largely raised in the one my father managed. There's much more on this work in my blog, The Second Stone, in an article entitled "The Big Islip Bowl Bowling Alley Pencil": https://www.allenschill.com/thesecondstone/the-big-islip-bowl-bowling-alley-pencil

A hand-made ukulele or banjo made form a cigar box and other materials, decorated with a haiku and other inscriptions, and illustrations drawn from the comic strip.

Kookoolele for Krazy Kat, 1996-2022. 63 x 23 x 20 cm. Cigar box, guitar strings, corks, eyescrews, paint. (id#1461)

I'm a huge fan of George Herriman and his comic strip Krazy Kat - deep stuff. There's much more on this work - such as details I don't show here, and an extensive essay - in my blog, The Second Stone, in an article entitled "Kookoolele for Krazy Kat": https://www.allenschill.com/thesecondstone/a-kookoolele-for-krazy-kat

Kookoolele for Krazy Kat (detail), 1996-2022. 63 x 23 x 20 cm. Cigar box, guitar strings, corks, eyescrews, paint. (id#1461)

There's much more on this work - such as details I don't show here, and an extensive essay - in my blog, The Second Stone, in an article entitled "Kookoolele for Krazy Kat": https://www.allenschill.com/thesecondstone/a-kookoolele-for-krazy-kat

A suggestion of two plants growing side by side, made of dominoes and wood.

Plants, July 2023. 29,8 cm height, 15,8 cm diameter base. Dominoes, dowels, wooden disc, wood stain, paint. (id#1557)

The dominoes are arranged in a spiral, each domino at a 60° angle to its neighbors, to mimic the way plants splay their leaves to maximize exposure to light.

Tiny whimsical sculptures made of just a few simple, colorful elements.

Monumentini (Tiny Monuments), 2022. Tallest 10,4 cm height, 2,2 cm diameter base. From left: with dud cherry bomb, with plastic gold star, with marzipan tangerine, with painted bird. Golf tees, spools, cedar cube, wooden pear. (ids#1468, 1469, 1467, 1470 respectively)

A small wooden sculpture made of a child&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s alphabet block.

Unicorn Monument, June 2023 (three views). 12 cm height, 6,3 cm diameter base, Alphabet block, cork, IKEA pencil. (id#1474)

A small wooden sculpture made of scrap wood, mounted a bit crookedly.

Crooked Monument, September 2022. 25,0 cm height, 7,3 x 7,3 cm base. Scrap wood. (id#1466)

A small wooden sculpture made of short sections of a broomstick.

Monument (Six Yellow Pucks), 2023. 20,2 cm height, 3,4 cmm diameter. Broomstick sections arranged in a spiral, wooden cylinder, kebab stick. (id#1471)

An ironic bowling trophy, made of pieces of some of my own old bowling trophies, mounted on a piece of wood, supposedly a trophy won by Hitler, Göring, and Goebbels for their victory in the Triples Championship.

Third Reich Bowling Trophy, August 2022 (front view). 9,8 cm height, 16,0 x 4,8 cm base. Bowling trophy eagles, wood, paint. (id#1465)

The team was known for being both bad winners and bad losers.

Third Reich Bowling Trophy, August 2022 (rear view). 9,8 cm height, 16,0 x 4,8 cm base. Bowling trophy eagles, wood, paint. (id#1465)

With "die Vernichter" translated into English on the back side. Annihilation, which was the aim of the Nazis, goes beyond mere destruction - it leaves behind neither fragments nor dust.

Third Reich Bowling Trophy, August 2022 (two side views). 9,8 cm height, 16,0 x 4,8 cm base. Bowling trophy eagles, wood, paint. (id#1465)

"Kegeln und Kugeln" is a vulgar word-play involving bowling and balls. Crude but true to the spirit (or sense of humor) of some people.

A simple monument (its main element a wooden spoon), meant ironically, owing something (without gratitude) to the monumental sculptures of the early Soviet period.

Spoon Monument, ca.1996. 25,5 cm height, 7,6 cm diameter base. Wooden mixing spoon, wood. (id#1454)

This is just a model. Ideally it should be ten or twelve stories high. Perhaps a syndicalist or pseudo-socialist monument to the I.F.K.W., the International Fraternity of Kitchen Workers. Their patron saints are Saint Lawrence and Saint Martha, and - for pastry crimpers - Saint Piran.

A simple wooden sculpture composed of canvas braces arranged in a spiral on a dowel.

Sculpture II, ca.1985 (three views). 30,1 cm height, 6,8 x 6,5 cm base. Canvas braces, dowel, wood. (id#1451)

The braces - the little wooden triangles painters use to reinforce their canvases - are arranged in a spiral, one of my most preferred forms.

A simple sculpture composed of wooden ice cream spoons arranged in a spiral on a dowel.

Sculpture I, ca.1985 (two views). 22,4 cm height, 10,0 cm diameter, 8,8 x 3,8 cm base. Scrap wood, ice cream spoons, dowel. (id#1450)

The spoons are arranged in a spiral, one of my most preferred forms.

A baseball covered with autographs of famous figures from religion as if the were baseball players, resting on a plastic stand (with crane emblem) originally meant to support a gong for Buddhist prayer.

Spiritual Baseball, ca. 2000 (two views). 10,1 cm height, 9,0 cm diameter base, 7,1 cm diameter ball. Baseball, ink, Buddhist bell stand. (id#1556)

I decided to cover a baseball with autographs of ballplayers who came from the world of religion and spirituality, giving them suitable nicknames. With humor, and with all due respect. Showing here are Zoroaster, Moses, Yeshua ben-Yusef (better known as Jesus), Timothy Leary, and Saint Francis of Assisi.

Spiritual Baseball, ca. 2000 (two views). 10,1 cm height, 9,0 cm diameter base, 7,1 cm diameter ball. Baseball, ink, Buddhist bell stand. (id#1556)

As with many sports, there's a Zen to baseball. Here I pull in other faiths and philosophies to this unifying idea. Here we have the autographs of Muhammed, Joan of Arc, Muktananda, and Jesus.

Spiritual Baseball, ca. 2000 (two views). 10,1 cm height, 9,0 cm diameter base, 7,1 cm diameter ball. Baseball, ink, Buddhist bell stand. (id#1556) Here are the signatures of Thomas Merton, Lao-Tsu, Nichiren, Satchidananda, and Gautama (best known as the Buddha).

A simple and crude assemblage of pieces of scrap wood, suggesting numerous things.

Monument for Coconino County Square, ca. 1998. 26,6 cm height, 22,6 x 22,6 cm base. Scrap wood, dowel. (id#1453) Subconsciously inspired by the zany background elements in George Herriman's comic strip, Krazy Kat.

A stand or rack for hats, coats and shoes, made of a croquet mallet, a croquet ball, various balls positioned as if moons of the croquet ball, and wood.

Shoe Tree/Coat Rack, 2021-23. 190 cm height, 43 cm diameter base. Croquet mallet, croquet ball, dowels, wood, tennis ball, handball, superball, rubber ball, paint. (id#1472)

There's no reason why a sculpture can't be useful, or why a practical thing can't be made with creativity.

Shoe Tree/Coat Rack (Four Moons detail), 2021-23. 190 cm height, 43 cm diameter base. Croquet mallet, croquet ball, dowels, wood, tennis ball, handball, superball, rubber ball, paint. (id#1472)

The crown of the coat rack is a croquet ball, a planet which spins on its axis (tilted like Earth's), and which has four moons, where hats can be hung.

Antique mirror, wood, archival black-and-white pigment prints, archival mat board, still-life photographs

Mirror with Appliqué Frame, 2023. 48.0 x 52.0 x 2.5 cm.. Antique mirror, wood, archival black-and-white pigment prints, archival mat board. (id#1709)

I mounted a very old mirror (with the finish very worn and imperfect behind the glass itself) on a piece of wood, with space around the edges, where I applied many sections of archival pigment test prints of still-life photographs.

A work in resin, displaying small plastic gems as if they were eggs.

Gems in Egg Carton, October 2022. 9,5 x 3,9 x 1,8 cm. Plastic baubles, tiny plastic egg carton, resin. (id#1544)

An arch made of five colorful plastic polyhedrons from an old game.

Arch of Polyhedrons (Zazz Arch), ca.1969. 6,2 cm height, 9,8 x 3,0 cm base. Pyrosculpture. (id#1475)

As an adolescent I made a few small sculptures by melting plastic objects over a gas flame.

Sculpture and Constructions, Part I

Sculpture hasn’t been a major part of my activity, but now and then over the years I’ve made things that weren’t two-dimensional. Recently - in 2022, 2023, and 2024, I’ve made several more. Properly speaking they are not sculptures, a word whose root verb scolpire implies something made by carving away or otherwise removing material - typically from wood or stone. Close to this are works made in clay, which can be worked by addition as well as subtraction. Better to call my works constructions, since they are made by putting things together. I’ll comment on the works in this gallery more or less in the order of their appearance here.

One of my main procedures or methods has been to assemble things from wood, usually scrap. Somehow I find myself inclined to discover interesting possibilities from what I have on hand. When I have many similar objects to arrange together, I often use the spiral as a motif, or perhaps the structure of a molecule. One that has been on the site for a long time is what I call Double Helix, essentially a portion of broomstick penetrated by dowels, and painted, with threads strung along the tips of the dowels. At around that time I made three similar works, with more or less regular configurations of dowels, that I left unpainted and unstrung. These are Double Helix II, Molecule I and Molecule II. (Two of them hang outside on my balcony, and after some months I was delighted to find that, on one, a spider has strung a web along the tips of the dowels, much as I might have done myself with thread! They are also practical - when the weather is warm, I hang t-shirts to dry on the sculptures.) There were also two pieces, the Satellites, not shown here, with short portions of the lathed wooden legs of tables or chairs attached to the ends of the dowels, suggesting perhaps a satellite or a floating tree. (I left these in New York when I moved to Italy. If I find photographs I’ll post them.)

A very recent (and, to me, important) work is the “Turbine Voodoo Arrow Missile” (for short - the full title is “Leonardo’s Smart-Enough Guided Semi-Ballistic Turbine Hate-Seeking Instant Karma Voodoo Arrow Missile, with Booster Stage”). It’s polemical - very rare for me - and is a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I’ve already treated this in some depth on my blog The Second Stone, so here I’ll show only two photos: https://www.allenschill.com/thesecondstone/leonardo-s-turbine-voodoo-missile

Another very recent work is “Endless Tower”, a nod to the great Constantine Brâncuși’s famous “Endless Column”, which he made in a few versions. Steal from the best, I always say. It’s composed of the sides of a shelf I made, notched to allow variable positioning of several shelves. (The shelf was used for two still-life photos I made, shown elsewhere on the site, “Backlit Still Life”, horizontal and vertical.)

Likewise inspired by Brâncuși (his ethereal “Bird in Space”) is “Shore Bird”. Just a wooden cylinder, a dowel, and a curved and tapered piece of an old wooden chair. The bird is in the attitude of a sea bird gazing out to sea - erect, attentive, alert. I have noticed my tendency to make constructions in groups of three elements. Nothing programmatic here, just a taste for classical proportions.

From a few years ago (and of personal importance to me) is The Big Islip Bowl Bowling Alley Pencil, made from a fat wooden stake (for terracing gardens) that I transformed into a huge replica of an old keepsake of mine, an actual pencil from the bowling alley my father managed for many years. It’s painted the same orange, and in black paint I added the same text (name, address, phone, slogan) as well as Islip Bowl’s maladroit mascot, Gutterball Gus, which was the invention of my uncle Oliver Zipp, a cartoonist in his heart. There’s much more to be said about this pencil, about Oliver, and much else, on my blog The Second Stone: https://www.allenschill.com/thesecondstone/the-big-islip-bowl-bowling-alley-pencil

The “Kookoolele for Krazy Kat” is a hand-made musical instrument (“musical” defined charitably), built of a cigar box, scrap wood, guitar strings, and eye screws for tuning pegs. I built the instrument years ago, but only finished it recently. Dedicated to George Herriman and Krazy Kat, as well as to Woody Guthrie, it’s inscribed with a haiku (in theme) and decorated with images of Krazy playing and of the notorious Brick. Here too, only two pictures and a link to the blog article, which deals with much more than my “kookoolele”: https://www.allenschill.com/thesecondstone/a-kookoolele-for-krazy-kat

Incidentally, I hear that cigar box musical competitions have become a big thing in the USA - some people make highly professional instruments with a minimum of means. (They have to be able to play them too, and well.) When I consider the history of music-making and musical-instrument-making, from paleolithic times to the present, it seems right to me that the field should not be monopolized by the factories and workshops that make the instruments most musicians play. I discovered while searching for myself that there is a brand of saxophone called Schill - no relation to me, as far as I know. It doesn’t seem to enjoy the best reputation, however.

Also incidentally, in the summer of 2024 during a visit to the US, I went with my siblings to the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook, on the north shore. There was an exhibit of about 50 extraordinary custom guitars made by John Monteleone, an Islip boy like me. If you've got five figures to spend on a superb instrument, he's your guy. The museum also hosts a permanent display of carriages and wagons from the 1800s - not to be missed. And on my way out, I made a rare impulse purchase from the museum shop - for thirty bucks I bought myself a fine ukulele kit. I built it - it's a handsome thing - and I promise myself I'll eventually learn to play it.

A very new work, related to a few others seen here in that it uses a spiral motif, Plants, is built of dominoes. They are drilled at one corner and arranged on a pair of dowels to suggest a plant with its leaves splayed to catch the light. I’ve often noticed that certain types of trees have double trunks, and the trees that grow remain joined at the base, like Siamese twins. Possibly it’s an adaptation, a survival mechanism - if one tree doesn’t make it, the other might.

Very recently I’ve made a few very small works - the Monumentini, or tiny monuments - consisting of various items assembled into a stack. A marzipan tangerine, a painted toy wooden bird, a cheap plastic star, an old cherry bomb, with wooden spools for bases, and golf tees as columns - colorful, whimsical. Two resemble water towers. I think of them as miniature monuments - although to exactly what I can’t say. I had the objects at hand, and once I saw how to put them together, it was only a matter of minutes to make each one, using PVA glue. Related is the Unicorn Monument - just an alphabet block mounted on a fat round cork with an IKEA pencil.

(This essay continues on the next page in this gallery - just advance to the right.)

Sculpture and Constructions, Part II

Similar, but not so small, is “Crooked Monument”, with a wooden block for a base, a tapered chair leg as a column, a little cockeyed. The main element is an odd wooden shape that once served as a stop for the automatic gate to our courtyard where I used to live. Very old, it split in two; I liked the shape, so I took it. I’ve used it already, split as it was, for a still-life photograph. (Many of our public monuments are perfectly straight, but I feel they would be more historically truthful if they were crooked and cheaply glued back together like mine.) Another recent work (Monument - Six Yellow Pucks) has six short sections of broomstick arranged in a spiral on a kebab stick, a wooden cylinder serving as base.

Then there’s the “Third Reich Bowling Trophy - Triples Championship”, made from the victory eagles of some old bowling trophies of mine mounted on a piece of wood, and inscribed with the names of the champs - Hitler, Göring, and Goebbels, and the team’s name “Die Vernichter” (“The Annihilators”), and a team slogan, “Kegeln und Kugeln” (more or less “Bowling and Balling”). It’s a pun in a German spirit, a vulgar and phallocentric - a spirit that doesn’t distinguish much between the game and making love, to use the polite term.

From quite a few years back is the “Spoon Monument”: a wooden spoon, a cylinder of wood, and one of the inserts used inside the cardboard-tube cores for material dispensed from big rolls. Both of these I like to imagine as models for much bigger public works, a few meters tall or a few stories high, a bit like the large “pop” sculptures of Claes Oldenburg. They surely leave many people perplexed, but they have a good, fun spirit. Art ought to be perplexing sometimes.

Also from years ago are a pair of tabletop works (Sculpture I and Sculpture II), consisting simply of a wooden block base, a dowel, and a series of small wooden pieces arranged in a spiral - wooden ice cream spoons in one case, and canvas bracers in the other. (These are the little wooden wedges painters jam into the inside corners of their canvas stretchers for reinforcement.)

Then again there’s Spiritual Baseball, which I made around 1998. The conceit here is simply to imagine some of the great figures of the history of religion and spirituality as if they were baseball players who have autographed the ball. Naturally, and according to baseball’s hallowed tradition, they all have nicknames. Joan of Arc is “Fireball Jeannie” for her incendiary fastball. Jesus is “Son o’ God”. Moses is “Mister Rulebook”. Muhammed is “The Messenger”. The Buddha Shakyamuni is “Prince”. Saint Francis is Frank “Watch da Boidy” d’Assisi for his association with birds. Then there are “Mookie” Muktananda, “Satchmo” Satchidananda, and a few more. I had fun with this. I’ve always thought of baseball as having a strong spiritual aspect - very Zen. (My mind would be very concentrated too, with a ten-million dollar contract.) Very recently I went over the autographs with supposedly permanent markers, as the original signatures had faded.

Another, Monument for Coconino County Square, is made of scrap wood - a two-piece base, an irregular piece of wood that resembles the tail fin of a car from around 1960, and a dowel with other objects threaded onto it at odd angles. The whole affair suggests one of the weird trees often seen in the backgrounds of George Herriman’s old “Krazy Kat” comic strips, although that wasn’t my conscious idea at the time.

One recent piece that resides in the gray zone between sculpture and furniture is Shoe Tree/Coat Rack, made from scrap wood. A thick round base and a vertical staff support a croquet mallet, a family heirloom at least 60 years old. Attached to the mallet is a dowel, and to that a croquet ball set at an angle to suggest the inclination of the Earth. Extending from the croquet ball are four dowels which each support a smaller ball - a set of moons: a tennis ball, a handball, a red superball (very old, and no longer super - it hardly bounces more than a rock now), and a small black rubber ball. These are for hats. Lower, on the staff, are a series of dowels, each with a short wooden cylinder for hanging shoes.

One item perhaps doesn’t belong here, and maybe I’ll move it elsewhere at some point. The recent Gems in Egg Carton, although made with resin, is definitely a sculpture in the sense that the other works here are sculptures.

Finally, there’s a very old item, really a bit of juvenilia, but worth showing here, as it shares some of the mathematical or scientific themes I’ve continued to work with as I’ve grown older. It’s the Arch of Polyhedrons, that I made by melting judiciously little pieces of plastic over the gas range in the kitchen.

Allen Schill, July 2023

“A good poet is worth no more than a good bowler.” Malesherbes