Shift Change

Picture of a storefront at night at an angle, with a central, unmarked door adjoined by two tall bay windows, with closed walls behind them. Inside each of the windows stand two cutouts of foamcore, one printed with the image of an ore crane - which looks like a truss bridge with big metal shovels hanging by cables underneath - and the other printed with a road bridge with pedestrians walking across it. Behind these cutouts, the walls of the bay windows are papered with wallpaper, which shows clouds and a musical staff. A framed picture of a clock hangs in the center of the back wall of each window. Their times read 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. — Shift Change, 2022. Digital prints on paper, foam, paint, and steel. 10ft x 8ft x 3ft.

“The Steel operated around the clock. I heard it. I lived close by. I heard it all the time. It was far enough away that the noise was not intrusive, but it was close enough to make us aware of when the constant clanging of metal would stop. Those pauses happened between worker shifts. …"

Picture of one bay window, from the front. Inside the windows stands two cutouts of foamcore, one printed with the image of an ore crane - which looks like a truss bridge with big metal shovels hanging by cables underneath, it's mechanical jaw open as if about to pick something heavy up - and the other printed with a road bridge with pedestrians walking across it. Behind these cutouts, the walls of the bay window are papered with wallpaper, which shows clouds and the beginning of musical staff, both treble and bass. A framed picture of a clock hangs in the center of the back wall of each window. Its time reads 8 a.m. — Shift Change: Left Window Detail

“It was not only the noise that signified the changing of worker shifts. It was the thousands of workers coming and going at the same time that also did it. Those shifts happened at 8:00 in the morning, 4:00 in the afternoon, and 12:00 midnight."

Picture of one foamcore cutout, printed with the image of pedestrians dressed in coats and hats crossing a steel road bridge. — Shift Change: Right Window Lower Bridge Detail

“I knew those times of day without ever having to wear a watch.”

~ Peter Kery, from On Lost, MFA Thesis Draft, Vermont College of Fine Arts

Picture of a framed image of a clock, hung from a wall wallpapered with the images of smokey clouds. The clock's outside body is square, with only two hands tracing the circle the numbers in the center. Printed underneath the numbers, partially obscured, reads the word 'Acropa.' The time reads 4 p.m. — Shift Change: Right Window Clock Detail

Shift Change is based on my father’s account of growing up in the shadow of Bethlehem Steel in the Lehigh Valley. It features images of the steel plant, its ore cranes and railroads, and the Minsi Trail Bridge once used by commuting steel workers.

Picture of wallpaper, printed with the image of smokey clouds, some of them emerging from the faint silhouette of a smokestack emerging from several others in a little mound in the distance. — Shift Change: Left Window Wallpaper Detail

My father, a graphic designer, and my grandfather, who drew engineering plans for the Steel, have inspired this piece.