Susan Dorothea White Bibliography

Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection

Tools as Art: Fantasy at Work is the latest exhibition drawn from the collection of John Hechinger, Sr. The hardware-inspired Hechinger Collection consists of sculptures, paintings, photographs, crafts, prints and drawings in which artists transform everyday work tools into instruments of imagination, creativity and craftsmanship. The exhibition is on view at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.

The collection includes works by two Australian artists: Susan Dorothea White’s It Cuts Both Ways, 1998, and Richard Tipping’s Drill-a-phone, 1997.

For a number of years, White’s work has explored the idiom “it cuts both ways,” meaning that something may have an equal or similar effect on one person as on another. Referring to the balance between gender and race, the bronze sculpture suggests that any potential movement by either pair of hands would activate both pairs equally. To realise the work, White replaced the handles of garden shears with hands carved from salvaged huon pine and clothing for the sleeves.

Both works have since been purchased for the Hechinger Collection.