We take on any material and convert it into discernible Mercy prototypes and products until all the workable material is exhausted or gone. We want to fashion items and goods out of materials that are otherwise considered unworthy, unusable, or “impossible” to work with. The execution lies in the challenge of what we work with and build from, no matter how painstaking the work may be.
We want to maintain a very open conceptual program. Plans, as a rule, will change or evolve according to random circumstances. There is almost no actual strategy. The overall idea is to keep motives, conceptions, and opportunities in a constant state of flux. Any idea for a given material has several creative values and directions.
It will function as an open-door gallery and workspace. Items on view will all be in various stages of their construction. Some items will be completed, others in some partial phase of their development. We’d like people to see where we are at any given point in a day with any available project. We consider this an invitation and a kind of participation between the viewer and our ongoing artistic process.
The craft in the work is comprised of a large and varied contribution of skills: woodworking, finish carpentry, engineering, design, printmaking, welding, and metal fabrication, to name just a few. Each skill is a factor in how the ideas for design and production come into play. Because the initial details of the materials may be obscure and their histories indefinite or unknown, the marriage between craft and creativity is given that much more room to conceive an eventual product. There is really no firm plan about how, say, a desk comes from a material; or how joists will be incorporated into a finished product. As long as the concept of a desk seems interesting, different, and challenging, the stages involved in its development and purpose must still necessitate a broad and imaginative approach to a re-purposed concept. This can only be achieved by the concerted efforts and imagination of an exceptionally skilled team.
