Intellectual Power Tools
| Books entered Jim Pallas' visual vocabulary as objects when he was
commissioned to create the monumental "LAW" sculpture for a Detroit
corporation. These Intellectual Tools started when Pallas attached a
shovel handle to
a previously epoxied book. He then attached ax, hammer and pick handles
to other objects of intellectual activity such as phones, typewriters,
cameras and computer keyboards. The gestural communication from the
tool
handle to the viewer's body couples with the conceptual meaning of the
phone,
book, or keyboard "tool head". Heavy layers of pigmented epoxy
emotionally color
and elevate the object from physical portmanteau to immaterial symbol.
|  | Red Ax 1995, 38 x 9 5/16 x 3 Wood handle, book, epoxy Lydia and Kurt Loren collection |
 | Hacker's Ax (Blue & Red). 1995. 51 x 7 1/2 x 2 1/2 " epoxy painted keyboard and cord with ax handle. collection of the University of Michigan Museum of Art |
