Artist # 5 Tom Friedman

Tom Friedman's work is new to me, and I really like it. I love how he uses everyday objects and just completely transforms them into a masterpiece. I was first really interested when I saw his starburst looking object made out of thousands of toothpicks. It's put together so well that you wonder how it's put together. How are the toothpicks staying together? It also looks like it must have taken a really long time.


His structures look amazing just as they are, but then you learn what they're made of and it makes them even more amazing. He uses objects that people use everyday, but in ways that I would never think of using them. For example, construction paper. He made this:

Because construction paper is so common, I have worked with it before, but I know how hard it would be to make this kind of sculpture. It seems like it would be easy because it's just paper, but I know if I tried it, it would be difficult.

You can see his time put into the sculptures. This giant ball is made up of 1500 pieces of chewing gum. Just thinking about the process of chewing all that gum and putting it together to make it look like one solid ball is crazy. When I first saw his different sculptures I thought to myself, "oh that's easy, I could do that." Now I know that it would really not be easy and I probably couldn't do it, and that's why I'm writing this about him and not myself!


This is the last picture I'll show. It's a self portrait carved into an aspirin.
His work just gets more unique and crazy as I look at it. The detail is amazing when you know that it's in an aspirin. Pills are small enough, but to carve your face into is amazing. The idea itself is amazing. His work is really inspiring while going through our own transformation projects. I really enjoy looking at his work and am glad I was introduced to him in class.