Artworks by Beeaje Quick

Crown of Thorns intro
Crown of Thorns

Chrome man
(21st Century Man) 1993, metal kinetic sculpture, 4x8x10

I had been making sculptures for some years and resigned myself to stop. I wanted to make another film instead. I was in a thrift store in downtown Los Angeles in 1993 when my friend Heather brought the electric bike to my attention. I remember saying ‘not interested,’ but after a curious Japanese man considered buying it, I bought one and created this piece, Like most of my ideas, they often start out simply.

New Language

I began to scribe symbols one evening in 1997. I kept doing them as a strange meditation. I painstakingly filled page after page on a thick book I carried with me everywhere. The symbols evolved and no one could ever find two alike. After an arthritic year of penmanship, the project was completed. I was very proud of this work. The text at the end read.

“12,561 symbols completed.”

“My pen was my penance, or conviction begins where patience ends.”

I made an installation that featured the book of symbols inside an incubator with a black light that allowed many people to enjoy turning the pages and examining the work with special gloves. After I came back from Egypt, I wondered around Los Angeles, trying to fin

d purpose again. I was trying to gather old materials so that I could re-engage into society as an artist once again.

I don’t remember where I blacked out, but I lost my briefcase with some of my most precious video masters and memories of the past 15 years. The book of symbols was also in that cachet.

I decided to do them again. This time, I am actually painting them with a Japanese brush and ink. When people ask me what these symbols mean? “They are a diary of my emotions.” I tell them.

Chaos

1990, Metal Assemblage,

4′ x 8′ x 13′

This assemblage was the second piece I created in 1990 while I resided at Young Moguls in Hollywood. I was very inspired at this time and full of positive affirmations. The idea was for someone to climb up to the base and look through a porthole with a heavenly light emanating from it. The next featured inside, at the end of a metal tube, reads: ‘The light at the end of the tunnel is you.’

Steven Tyler came to my house in this time and was one of the first people to be taken by the piece. He later admitted using the line to cap one of the hit singles from “Get A Grip,” called, “Amazing.” He was very kind to me and offered to pay for it when we met up again much later. I told him not to worry about it and he later went on to write the forward in a book I published, where he cited that, “Beeaje Quick is the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Jet Machine

1993, kinetic sculpture, 5′ x 6′

I have always wanted to make a jet machine because they have long fascinated me. I would sift through downtown junkyards in the early 90′s for choice pieces. One afternoon, I found an old turbine and could not believe it. The Russian owner wouldn’t sell it to me because he said he could sell it to Russia for a lot more. I tried everything to get it from him, but he refused. I became a friend to some of the Mexican workers on the yards and they turned a blind eye when I threw it in my car and just took off with it in the name of art.

I hid a drill in the cabinet and attached it to a variable rheostat and to the jet with a small microphone that amplified that sound. The wizard of Oz was born. The gag worked so well that people believed they were powering up a real jet. It was the fact that they were all connected up in real time that sold it. Only a few people ever questioned its authenticity over the years of public showing. The text on the hotdog cabinet reads: “Those of us who consider ourselves inventors must acknowledge that the wheel was always inside the stone; we should feel fortunate that we were given the eyes to see beyong the stone.”

Table of Contents

1997, chrome, 4′ x 4′

The first piece I created at Young Moguls had some of the components that I used on the more sophisticated version of the same concept seven years later. I recreated the “Table of Contents” after a bad break up in a relationship that left me with emotional disarray.

The chrome table features eight embedded LED displays that carry inspirational text messages. The heart of the installation lives inside a chrome ball. The mechanism inside cranks a hand painted, circular glass pallet slowly. A bright light shoots through an external crystal that projects a three-dimensional looking porthole surrounded by moving clouds that change color. The sounds of gypsies spinning their hands along the rims of crystal glass are heard, creating a very emotional setting.

Creative Blood Comes in all
Shapes and Sizes

1990, Wood, Glass, and Light, 3′ x 8′

This piece was my third creation. I wanted to make something less mechanical and more organic. The different sized bottles symbolize how people are fat, thin, short, and tall. The bottles are filled with Italian syrup and back lit by dimmed bulbs.

Odd People

Rock Sculptures

Copyright 2010 © BEEAJE QUICK - godspeedbooks - Entries and comments feeds. Valid XHTML and CSS. ^Top^ login