Schuyler Dawson

Lives and works in San Francisco, CA, USA

Artist statement

For the entirety of my working life I have relied on manual/physical labor for survival. In my latest work I have been contemplating the relationship between labor, the wear on the body, and the physicality required to maintain our built world. The relationship between the laborer, their body, their work and their livelihood is often quite precarious. I have worked with people on the edge of retirement whose bodies have given out from a lifetime of labor, struggling through pain to make a living. Many of these people have traded their body for a better future for their children or on a fundamental level, survival. within this exchange there is is pride in the work, mindfulness, creativity, a sense of duty and hope. Along with this exchange, I am also considering generational lineages, as this work was handed down to me by my father. When I pull a nail out of an old piece of wood, I think of the hand that set that nail. Who framed this house before me, who cut this wood, who built this fence? There is a lineage of labor as we maintain our world. Maintenance is often not talked about, it is not sexy, it is not sleek, it is not innovation. Growing up and living in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region that deifies innovation, I would like to celebrate the builders and the maintainers. The workers who quietly fight the forces of entropy to ensure the survival of our infrastructure. If the civilization is predicated on our collective efforts and constructs then these workers are...

Artwork