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There is No Cause for Alarm...
The Commuter Gallery

The Infrastructure

of an Uncertain Future

     " Hosebag" Thong    BooHoo Ramblers

"Creating Community"

opening of "Boundary"

1994

"No More Apples for Me"

1995

"Infrastructure"

conceptual drawing

1997

      "Hosebag" on back

16 Stoves

#1
#3

16 Stoves

             #11              #14
   

Click an image to see more

   

the eelMobile

     

 
 

 

The Psychic Unity Museum

The Infrastructure of an Uncertain Future

installation

1999-2002

Iron, steel, bronze, found objects.

427x192x192"

 

 

The Infrastructure of an Uncertain Future

original conceptual drawing

1997

pen & ink

12x9"

 

The Flight of #13

1999

steel, found iron

part of

The Infrastructure

of an Uncertain Future

Closed Carnival

1992

steel. 

15x15x15  

 

The Superstructure

original conceptual drawing

1997

pen & ink

12x9

 

A Man of the Cross

1998

steel, found objects

 

The Flight of #13

1998

oil on canvas 

60x48

 

The Flight of # 13

original conceptual drawing

1997

pen &ink

12x9

 

Flight of 13+1

1998

oil on canvas 

60x48 

 

Deposit of 7

1998

oil on canvas

60x48

 

8th Hole

1998

oil on canvas

60x48

 

Mobelisk   

1995

steel.

77x12x12

 

Quandary

1995

 iron, steel.

85x12x40

 

Kingdom Come

1995

iron, steel. 

149x284x55

 

The End of Time

1995 

iron, steel, bronze. 

116x20x20 

 

Sky Scratcher  

1997

iron, steel   

206x30x30  

 

Nude #1  

1994

iron, steel. 

78x20x30 

 

Spring   

1994

iron, steel.

aprox.80x42x12

 

Contrapposto

1993

found iron, steel

77x43x12

 

Old #7

1998

iron, steel

 

Misfit

1993

bronze, painted steel 

36x26x3

 

Industrial Waste

1994

bronze, iron, steel.

44x106x12 

 

Alternates  

1994

bronze, steel. 

102x24x32  

 

It's Later Than You Think

1994

bronze, iron, steel.

100x184x24 

 

Under Pressure

1996

iron, steel, bronze.

42x13x13  

 

Admit One  

1995

bronze, steel. 

86x28x27 

 

The eelman

1993

steel.

20x62x2

 

Fear of God  

1991

steel, cast iron nose. 

60x20x14   

 

Speaking in Tongues 

1993

iron, painted steel 

15x11x1 

 

Loon 

1993

iron, steel. 

12x10x1 

 

World Waiting

 

1993

8x22x1

cast bronze, steel

 

Fate #75151875

1993

bronze, steel

12x6x1

 

Corporate Blue

1993

cast aluminum, steel

21x8x1

 

Hell

Vaughn's cupola

1994

steel, cast bronze

10x10x2

 

Mistaken Identity

1993

15x8x1

cast bronze, steel

 

Into the Blue

1993

bronze, painted steel, cloth

17x8x2

 

Last Call

1993

12x10x1

cast iron, steel

 

Stalemate 

1992

iron, steel. 

68x84x23 

 

 

Crawl

1998                           

oil on board in steel        

29x66   

 

That Which makes you Live…

1998

steel, found objects  

59x67x14

 

5/8 , 9/16 

1996

oil on canvas  

54x72 

 

Adam  

1989

steel.

61x31x24

 

Jockey

1989

found iron, steel

48x12x12

 

Lady Injustice

1990

steel, acrylic eye, coins

h.30"

 

Captive Man  

1990

steel.   

88x45x32

 

Bag Man   

1990

steel.   

56x45x24   

 

Dance of the Dead

1990

steel.   

85x90x60

 

Bust of Bub   

1993

bronze, copper, stone 

16x16x10 

 

Mack

1992

bronze, stone. 

11x16x11 

 

Boundary 

1994

iron, steel. 

115x600x240 

 

Valve    

1995

iron, steel. 

62x19x19 

 

Tank  

1995 

steel, bronze. 

164x32x50 

 

Harvest

1995

oil on cardboard 

22x32

 

Control Tower  

1996

iron, steel. 

276x85x192 

1/3 of  Faith in Industry

 

Playing with Fire

(triptych) 

1996

oil on canvas

24x60

 

Sky Saw  

1996

iron, steel    

288x18x29  

1/3 of   Faith in Industry

 

Cluster 

1997         

oil on canvas      

20x18   

 

Sky Stitcher  

1996

iron, steel  

240x40x19 

1/3 of   Faith in Industry

 

Faith in Industry

video installation

1998

TV, Statue of Liberty statue, rabbit ears,

chair, cabinet, stool, bowl of cheetoes,

coffee cup, ashtray, newspaper want ads,

monkey wrench

 

Desire?  

1995

oil on canvas   

12 x 14   

 

Father & Son

1995

oil on canvas  

20x24 

 

Harlequin

1992

steel,cast bronze,painted wood,

cast plaster, dirt, found objects. 

60x20x14                 

 

Begin Again 

1992

iron, steel, found objects. 

80x__x__  

 

I don't give a fuck you fascist Nazi bastards

 

1992           

steel, stone.

108x30x18

 

No More Apples for Me 

1995

oil on canvasboard 

30x15 

 

Cyclist   

1991

steel.  

84x72x35   

 

The Diver   

1991

iron, steel, bronze.  

84x56x34   

 

Transmitter 

1992

bronze, steel. 

14x5x18  

 

Reduction/Stitch

1992

cast bronze, steel

11x42x3

 

Anomie

1992

cast bronze, steel

25x16x16

 

Portrait of a Cannibal

1992

bronze, steel

12x9x3

 

Personal Decision

1992

cast bronze, painted steel, found gun, wool cape

28x14x14

 

Murdered Man

1991

painted steel, glass eyes, found knife

40x78x48

 

Banana

1990

painted steel

44x16x16

 

Jeffrey Diamond Posing as a Floor Lamp

1990

steel

63x18x18

 

Hat on the Horizon

1995

oil on canvasboard

12x16

 
 

Level & Plumb

1995

oil on canvas

20x24

 

Open End

1996

oil on canvas

30x18

 

Chattahoochee

1996

found iron, steel

9x74x9

 

Awk

1997

oil on canvas

24x18

 
 

A Long Way to the Top

1994

cast iron, found iron, steel

128x10x10

 

The Other Side / More Ways Than One

1995

steel

53x34x12

 

Broken Angel Argument

1988

acrylic on canvas

24x36

 

In a Field of Flowers

1997

oil on canvas

30x40

 
 

Mail Order Accident

1997

oil on canvas

24x18

 

Hydrogen Power Now!

outfit: 2004

custom jumpsuit, gaff tape hat, Fubu shoes (size 9)

Before Al Gore there was

Clark Ashton's Grassroots Hydrogen Power Initiative.

Get the original history making suit before somebody else does!

 
                          
 
   
Historic Riverfront Kingdom with Cathedral and Art Collection

LANDMARK ATLANTA PROPERTY with SCULPTURE GARDEN

All or part. Make offer.

There's only one! Nothing like it anywhere else on earth.

Mechanical Riverfront home with Industrial Cathedral

& complete inventory of artwork for a Psychic Unity Museum.

THE COMMUTER GALLERY

www.thecommutergallery.org

Now being offered. Creative offers considered. Financing available.

Multiple possibilities exist for sales or leases, installation of sculpture at your location, commissions for site-specific artwork, residencies, sermons, paintings, drawings, artist lectures & performances, consecrations, musical performances, appearances. Willing to travel.

The Commuter Gallery is one of Atlanta's most unique properties. This distinctive sculptural environment of inter-related works created by venture spiritualist Clark Ashton is situated on a major thoroughfare, where interaction with commuters becomes part of this living artwork. Don't miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to own this landmark home with it's remarkable collection of monumental kinetic sculpture, through which community is created, psychic unity is manufactured, and mankind's folly is laid bare for eternity through symbolic structures. Here, public meets private, chaos becomes order, and time stands still. There is nothing like it anywhere. This property and related artwork have been featured on The CBS Sunday Morning Show, Art Papers magazine, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, and numerous other broadcasts & publications.     Included in this offering are:

The Infrastructure of an Uncertain Future

1997-2002

Consisting of 3 parts:

1. The Superstructure(Sewer Brick Road, Entry Gate, SuperSaw, SuperShaft, SuperHoser, SuperDogmadizer, Idea Transmission Terminus, SecondarySaw, Twin-Towered SuperHoister, SuperSewer, East & West Cleansing Stations, Chump Chute, Final Exit Gate, & Chump Dust Bin)

2. The Idea Transmission Ruin :  (3 ITR poles, Adam 1989, & A Man of the Cross 1999)

3. The Flight of #13 1999

The Infrastructure of an Uncertain Future is an artifactual environment of what hasn't happened yet. It projects the world far into the future. It is a monument to the 20th Century, an artifact of fantasy, and a foreshadowing of future collapse and mutation. Physically, it consists of a Superstructure, an Idea Transmission Ruin, and Wandering Figures. Conceptually, it addresses issues related to social and cultural organization such as economic systems and belief systems with an emphasis on retrospection, evolution, and the passage of time. The Infrastructure is imagery based on the industrial past, positing not atmospheric waste or social injustice, but analogies for the future through psychic dissemination of undeveloped ideologies via symbolic structures. Ideally this work would be placed in a desert where environmental conditions will allow it to last indefinitely beyond the collapse of human civilization. It is a "Rosetta Stone" that will explain to travelers of time and space how Homo sapiens destroyed themselves.

 

 

Faith in Industry

Manufacturing psychic unity since July 4, 1996

Sky Saw, Control Tower, & Sky Stitcher, Tank & Valve

Faith in Industry is a site-specific sculptural installation designed to produce psychic unity using commuters as raw materials. It presents an analogy for the status of our society with regard to the co-existence of and inter-relationship between the two most powerful conceptual forces in the history of human culture, God and Capitalism, as they exert themselves on our nationalistic tendencies. The piece questions the nature of faith, power, value systems and systems of belief. It communicates and generates a plethora of ideas, and injects those ideas directly into the primary instrument of the formation of the American diaspora, the highway system, i.e., the mechanical river. Faith in Industry consists of three formal structures: The Sky Saw, The Control Tower, and The Sky Stitcher, and a ritual performance.
The Sky Saw is designed to cut a hole in the sky creating a psychic opening thereby giving access to the other side of consciousness and allowing for psychic unity to occur. The Control Tower is used to harvest errant souls from chaos as they are lost in transit during the mundane ritual of the daily commute, and send them through the hole in the sky where psychic unity occurs or to the hole in the ground where they mop floors and study yin-yang until they are ready for personal spiritualism at some future time. The Sky Stitcher is designed to sew up holes in the sky when openings appear that may be detrimental to humanity as a whole, such as the fundamentalist hole and the unbridled capitalist hole which seek to inflict their paradigm upon anything under their vacuum.
During the Faith in Industry ritual performance, the complex is activated while commuter traffic backs up bumper-to-bumper in front of the house. Work consists of "bearing the burden" through chaos on an ascent to the shining city on the hill where a "consecration of commuters" takes place. Then operation of all towers can proceed, interspersed with coffee breaks.
This trinity of works solves all possible problems related to the great unknown. If one is seeking psychic unity, the Sky Saw can provide the opening for such an experience. If a psychic opening is causing turmoil, it can be closed up with the Sky Stitcher. If there is no interest in the other side of consciousness, then a stint in the Control Tower should provide a sense of secular power, renewing that element of control necessary to psychological balance.

 

  

Boundary  1994

Depicting TIME; past, present, and future while separating SPACE; My peaceful home space from the chaotic world of life in transit.

  

 

Sanctuary

Kingdom Come 1995, The End of Time 1995, Sky Scratcher 1997

Within the Sanctuary exists the apparatus to communicate with the spiritual community. The throne of Kingdom Come is enclosed under a receiving antenna and outfitted with a tuning fork to further decode the information being transmitted from the other side of consciousness. Here spiritual contemplation can take place. It is from the vantage point of the throne, looking out at The End of Time, that one can create for themself a personal ideological construct to ease the anxiety of mortal cognizance. For the seeker of Personal Spiritualism, The Kingdom will come. The Sky Scratcher serves as a medium for speaking back to the other side of consciousness. Symbolizing the ritual act of prayer, it completes the circle of communication in this cosmology.

 

Reconciling Reality in the Age of Technology

The Sargasso Sky, a.k.a.,  eelman Heaven

Psychic unity is a state of mind in which the individual becomes one with the other side of consciousness, where the mortal psyche is united with a perceived universal order, where the known becomes integrated with the unknowable, where chaos becomes order, where pure freedom reigns. Belief systems provide us with a methodology for achieving psychic unity. Unfortunately, many belief systems have evolved that not only unify psyches but entire societies for other than constructive ends. Cultures with different belief systems often come into conflict with each other as a result. Economically oriented conflicts are justified as God's purpose. Nations are founded under God's direction and blessing. People die in defense of their concept of the unknowable.Concepts of God and the afterlife have long been used to organize or otherwise manipulate people by providing a sense of common destiny, or invoking the threat of supernatural punishment. Since the resolution of the mortality question is one that all humans must deal with at some time, belief systems are a handy mechanism for sheep herding. By entering the corral, one becomes psychologically subject to the unpredictable consequences of human folly such as Crusades and Jihads. Control slips out of your gray matter and into oblivion. Since the spiritual blueprints from which belief systems were formed are the product of imagination, it is to the imagination that one must turn in order to achieve control and hence, freedom.
While it may not be possible to save the world, it is certainly possible to save oneself. And the power to do that must come from within. Control over one's life is an element that may be essential to psychological balance. Since control is in many ways a state of mind, balance resides in the development of a mental construct that resists manipulation by the forces of social organization. The eelman is a channel to the other side of consciousness where ideas lurk in seclusion until they manifest themselves in reality through the mind of the individual.

It's Later Than You Think is primarily a product of reflections on the unemployed experience. Here we have juxtaposed spiritual imagery with blue collar imagery in order to work out analogous relationships between religious and secular belief systems for the purpose of social commentary on materialism as religion, and to raise questions regarding modern social and cultural organization with particular regard to the declining role of basic human compassion in the present social climate. While on one level it may appear to be a negative critique of capitalism, its primary purpose is to provoke the question: What am I doing with my life? The heads on pickets represent the poor miserable unemployed souls that have been cast out of society: the insane, the infirm, the elderly, the street people; all devils to a society that worships boundless productivity and growth.The hopeful angels stand on the outside posts, the fringe of society where advocates of the poor reside. They are hoping for a state of social equality that will raise the miserable outcasts up from their status as victims of human objectification; valueless products of the capitalist machine which churns along, self-driven by its own momentum. The posts are screw shaped to symbolize the churning of life under the clock of linear time. They direct all focus toward the holy arch, passageway to a socially acceptable existence in the mainstream of gainfully employed individuals. Outside of the arch, on the handrails, two cats rest as symbols of independence. Without collars or chains, they live by their wits and do as they please, feeling no need to venture through the arch and into the forsaken land. The screaming angels are the final sirens of warning placed at the entrance to the employed realm. They tell of the imminent disconnection from the self that often is required to succeed in the competitive environment of the commodified labor world. This disconnection is the social equivalent of selling one's soul to the devil.On top of the holy arch, the vultures wait. At the pinnacle of the social hierarchy they feed on the carrion of those unable to function within the parameters of the system. They place the heads on the poles as a warning to those unwilling to play their game. The system is not perfect, however, and an economic downturn results in the stagnation of production and growth. Hence, the wheels of industry are static. Now, with the failure of this social organization to include a functional percentage of its members (the fence pickets are full), it becomes necessary to call on traditional values in the form of supernatural forces in order to remedy the problem before anarchy sets in. Jesus to the rescue. Seven unemployed Jesus's line up to pray for the wheels of industry to turn again. Seven are used to symbolize the luck required when depending on prayer. They also represent politicians that preach economic salvation under their policies.While all of this may appear to be a vision of doom and gloom, for me it is really a celebration of life. After many years trapped in the prison of gainful employment, like the miserable souls crammed into the holy arch along with the means of production that they do not own, I was rendered unemployed. This gave me the time and opportunity to focus on what I really wanted to do. It made me more aware of how precious our brief period of physical existence really is.In this context, the gears represent elements of a clock mechanism. The plumb bob functions as an elegant weight, driving the clock that measures this precious time, which is frozen here in this sculptural snapshot. Nevertheless, time moves on, limiting what we can make of our lives. The posts that hold up the lintel are designed to resemble a pencil and paintbrush, as art is a basic foundation of humanity and civilization.

Religious operatives commonly conduct theatrical productions based on a historical drama to achieve an exaggerated emotional effect in order to gain investors. Politicians preach righteousness while propping up murderous industries and demonizing artists. This view behind the scenes de-mystifies and exposes the fragility of such human constructs. In the study of belief systems we find that they all serve the same function: to ease our anxiety over mortality and the pain of life. One is no better than the next. Thousands have come and gone. Further, they evolve and change over time. They will certainly continue to alternate. It is not surprising that a system that seems to have the power to remove us from the anxiety of life by showering us with material things would become so popular. The irony is that it also creates a hitherto unseen degree of social stress that can only be corrected by achieving a balance between the physical and spiritual needs of each individual. Unfortunately, the integration of the socio-economic system with western ideas of spirituality has placed both paradigms on the same side of the scale making balance impossible and relegating mainstream America to value fanaticism and ideological chaos. This condition may be referred to as a "crisis of belief." Faith in Industry addresses this crisis by endowing the anachronistic industrial objects with the conceptual mechanisms of faith and begins a Restoration process.

 

This industrial scene is designed to illuminate particular manifestations of human objectification and the powerlessness of the worker in our mass production oriented materialistic culture. The industrial ladder allows for the ascent of Joe Averageman from the ranks of the unemployed to the precarious position of industrial drone. All of his hopes and American dreams rely on the false security of a steady paycheck. Despite his quasi-awareness of his predicament, he maxes out his charge cards, gets a house note, a car note, has 2.5 kids, and buys countless objects he has little use for like the good consumer he is programmed to be. He queues like a lemming, walking the plank right up to the edge, waiting for the boom to drop. Behind Joe's tiny enslaved existence, the corporate executive has built the requisite executory devices into his industrial complex. With a hand on the reins he drives his men for all they're worth. From here he is able to control the manual tilt that lays waste to the necessary number of employees when he is done with them. This relatively slow rate of attrition may not be fast enough, however, to allow him to salvage enough surplus value from his work force to maintain his present rate of property acquisition. Therefore, he has provided an instant full tilt dump pedal switch to quickly eradicate those pesky plebeians when they become useless to him. "No company picnic this year".

 

2000 Sq. Ft. brick ranch home

Built in 1957. 3BR, 2BA, COLD A/C! , w/ separate 480Sq' workshop  

 

For further details & information contact:

Clark Ashton

3162 N. Druid Hills Rd.

Decatur, GA 30033

t : 404-321-7504

e : clark@thecommutergallery.org

wait! BONUS!!!!! Free BooHoo Ramblers concert with purchase.

Or just book us for your Party!!!

www.boohooramblers.com

check out our new CD   "Other Side of Heaven"