Nathan Margoni

Illustration for "Seuss, Serapion, and Scripture," an essay by Trevor Sutton, 2011

http://thecresset.org/2011/Advent/Sutton_A2011.html

Legs, 2011, faux fur, wood, door hinges, rope, fabric, acrylic, cardboard, plastic, sprayfoam, hot glue, stuffing, pillows, socks, eye hooks.

Proposal Sketch, 2011, pencil on paper

PULL ME, 2011, fabric, hot glue, cardboard, foam padding, spray foam, construction paste, newspapers, gloves, white plastic wastebaskets, punch bowls, wood, pump foghorn, bed spring, plastic piggy banks, stuffed animals, pantyhose, rope, spoons, press-on fingernails, fake hair.

In this interactive sculpture, viewers are lured into the mouth of a giant monster head by a dangling uvula with the words "PULL ME." Doing so activates a foghorn in the gallery.

http://www.carlbergprojects.com/

Sketches for Pull Me, 2011

I'm lost in the world,

I'm lost in the world.
It's like an ocean,
Help me swim to shore
I'm drowning.
I'm lost in the world.

In the Labrynth

I'm lost in the world.
I'm lost in the world.
I can't get out,
someone help!
I'm lost in the world.

There are Aliens in My Closet

There are aliens from Martillia
I tell you it's really true.
They're eating me out of house and home,
and I don't know what to do.

They're living in my closet,
with my toys and bears and all.
And sometimes when I play checkers
or go out to the mall
They snoop into the kitchen
at nighttime when it's dark.

And even sneak some snacks out,
When I go to the park.

I love my aliens and they love me.
I think I'll make a date with them
at 6:00 for tea!

The Pillows on Mars

The pillows on Mars
Are almost like ours.

They're covered with cloth,
not skin from a sloth.

But as I said, 'almost,' They're soft and they're nice,
But they're filled with mice!

"I've been outside here and I've seen the sky"

"I've been to movies and I've seen 'em cry"

"I've been to churches and I've seen the steeple"

"I've been places and I've seen people"

These are in- progress illustrations for a book of poems called S.P.A.M. (Some Poems About My life) by Donna the Sellinger

Hand (pictured with The Golden Lonely by Leah Tacha), 2010, fabric, faux fur, carpet, socks, pillows, traffic cone, plastic bowls, cardboard, hot glue, newspaper, cotton, wood, eye-hooks, latex and acrylic.

Studies for Overgrown, 2010, charcoal on paper.

Overgrown, 2010, faux fur, fabric, hot glue, socks, plexiglass, sprayfoam, plastic bowls, plastic vase, newspaper, airmattress, hoola-hoop, string, latex and acrylic paint, pillows, sweatpants, paint rags, stuffed monkey and rabbit, clip lamps.

What Goes Up Must Come Down, 2009, air mattress, fabric, pillows, socks, tassels, plastic salad bowls, spray foam, carpet, pirate hook, flattened cans, other flattened road debris, latex, acrylic, oil, wood, PVC, rope, lights

I am afraid of love, sex, rejection, girls, failure, death, disease, baldness, hair, dirt, darkness, dampness, puddles, holes, hills, other people, tall people, girls, eye contact, laughter, giggles, hiccups, vomit, farts, shit, piss, ass, chapped lips, letting go, starting over, moving on, forgetting, being forgotten, getting lost, growing up, growing old, falling apart, losing my mind, just losing, slowing down, stopping, resting, sleeping, and everything else that confronts me with the true nature of the universe. I am afraid of the universe.

I attribute these fears to my sheltered middle-class upbringing and the lack of any kind of rights of passage in my society or traumatic event in my personal life. A boy needs something to throw himself out of domesticity and into the world of danger, responsibility, and consequence. Without that something, he may wind up feeling a little conflicted, like me. Supposedly I am an adult, but I couldn't tell you how or when I became one.

In Myths to Live By, Joseph Campbell seems to be writing about my condition. "I have noticed (haven't you) on television that when professors are asked questions they usually hum and haw and mmm and uh, until you have to ask yourself whether it is some kind of interior crisis they are experiencing, or just a loss of words for exquisite thoughts; whereas when a professional baseball or football player is asked even a pretty complicated question, he can usually answer it with ease and grace. He graduated from the womb when he was nineteen or so and the best player in the sandlot. But this other poor chap was held sitting under a canopy of professors until well into middle age, and even though he must now have aquired that degree, it came too late for him to ever to begin developing what used to be called self-confidence. He has the imprint of that professorial canopy in his IRMs forever and is still hoping that no one is going to be giving him bad marks for his answer."

The professor and I need to conquer our fears, graduate from our wombs, and develop this thing called self-confidence before it's too late. So I am using my art as self-help. My strategy is to reconcile the things I am most afraid of with the things I am most comfortable and familiar with, thus becoming comfortable with fear- so comfortable that I laugh in its face.
Artist Statement 2009

Mattress Monster, 2008, six mattresses, fabric, carpet, plastic bottles, beads, plastic pirate hat, socks, nylon, tennis ball, pillows, bed springs, milk jugs, pots and pans, bunji, rope, string, cardboard, PVC, wood, hot glue, latex, acrylic

That's me jumping on the pile of mattresses. Strings are tied from the surface of the top mattress to the limbs of the creature above, so everything flails around when you jump. There's noise, too, pots and pans that clang against one another inside of the head, and bottles that rattle in the limbs.

Monster Suit, 2008, clothing, fabric, zippers, pockets, nerf football, plastic bowling pins, water bottles, speakers, walking stick with tennis grip, faux fur, hair, bungi chords, PVC, hot glue, camping equipment.

The suit is packed with camping equipment-the head is stuffed with a sleeping bag and pillow, the tail with snacks, each teet with a different flavor of gatorade(you drink from the nipples), the penis holds and sprays bug repellent, the index fingers are flashlights(like E.T.), and the ears hold speakers that play a never-ending mix of old-time folk music.

I was trying to give myself some sort of authentic experience with nature. I wanted to feel something, something real, so I put every artificial strategy I could think of towards that end- I dressed myself as a wild animal, I drowned out my mundane thoughts with gut-wrenching broken hearted blues and folk songs by real hard travelers like Woody Guthrie, Son House, and Blind Willie McTell, I ate nothing but the most organic foods Stop 'n Shop had to offer, and I dragged my sorry self through the muckiest, thorniest, smelliest pieces of land on Purchase College campus. I don't know for how many hours I trudged through the woods in that suit, but some time after the sun went down I finally got my fill of struggle and pain. I climbed up to the highest point on campus, which happened to be on a hill of overgrown trash, and went to sleep. Slept like a baby, don't remember what I dreamt but I woke up feeling satisfied, I was real again. It was getting light out and I wasn't technically allowed to be on that hill, so I packed myself up and went straight back into the briar bushes, took the thorny way back to my car, all before any of the other humans so much as rolled over to ignore the morning light creeping up their dormitory windows.

Poodle, 2007, hotel towels, cotton, dog toys, chewing gum, plastic balls, leashes, turf, wood, wire mesh, pink foam, hot glue, latex paint, acrylic

Doghouse Drawings, 2007, graphite

These might seem a little out of place because of their cuteness (they're illustrations for a dog agility training center in Michigan). I'm not ashamed to say that I found the work really satisfying and was pleased with the end results. Maybe because I didn't have to think about my "style" and how it fit in with the content, I could just let myself draw.

Fence Monster, 2007, fence, fabric, pink foam, PVC, wood, t-shirts, fabric, plastic light-saber(retractable unicorn), squeaky-toy(squeals on impact), hot glue, spray-foam

Fence Monster Instructional Model, 2007, pipe-cleaners, popsicle sticks, textured spray paint, rope, turf, wood

Monster Ball, 2007, t-shirts, fabric, newspaper, cotton, hair, hot-glue, acrylic, steel, wood.

Monster Ball Instructional Model, 2007, pipe-cleaners, wire, turf, epoxy, hot glue, wood
These models and large sculptures were shown together in an old fenced-in playground outside the Cleveland Institute of Art. Viewers were invited to crank the monster ball, whirling grotesque bodies round and round, slamming them into the ground, and to pull a rope, catapulting a caterpillar-type monster straight into a fence, making it squeal in pain(dog toy-activated), then letting it fall with a great thud back to the ground. I thought it was a bit much to ask good honest people to participate in such senseless violence, so I tried to disguise it as good wholesome fun by placing cute, kid-friendly models right in front of the real things. And it worked!

Monster Ball, 2006, t-shirts, cardboard, newspaper, cotton, hair, hot-glue, acrylic.

Tree-Fairy(with telescopes), 2006, fairy: tree, sticks, pebbles, brush, spray foam, mesh, bedsheets, hair, fake birds, tennis ball, oil and acrylic. telescopes: cardboard, PVC, photos on acetate, spraypaint.