McAlister Merchant

Medium: Mixed Media
Studio: 7630 NE 124th St.
Phone: 425.825.5545

I have been an artist as long as I can remember. An aunt of mine has saved for years a crayon-rendered greeting card I made for her before I was in kindergarten.

As a young child, I attended the Art Institute of Chicago, as a teenager I tried correspondence art instruction and as an adult I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Product Design from Art Center College of Design. As a professional artist, I’ve been editorial cartoonist, graphic designer, filmmaker and Product Designer. I’ve designed handheld light meters and motorcycle parts, sixty-foot graphics and mainframe computer housings.

There is no single theme that runs through all my work; I am the thread that binds it all. Most of my professional work has been focused on problem-solving and therefore reflects the diversity of my clients, their problems, and ultimately, the variety of my resolutions. More often than not, these resolutions were centered on materials and manufacturing issues. Sometimes the primary issues were ergonomics and marketing concerns. Sometimes I had to resolve manufacturing or parts issues in order to support the “design” solution I proposed. I wanted my clients to manufacture because the solution was as viscerally or spiritually satisfying as it was correct. I wanted customers to buy because “it fit!” – her eye, his hand, their desire for the best, the prettiest, the brightest, the most elegant – as well as their need.

There are things I seek often, and perhaps, in every work I do.

There is a space between our hand and what we hold that, defined by the holding of it, is where something sometimes very wonderful happens. There is an energy that lives between the things we build and the things we use and ourselves that changes what we are and what these things mean. This energy is in our heads and in our hearts. We manage that energy through our choices and through ownership and in use and appreciation. As an artist I want to provide and to define that energy space, to expose, to enhance that energy space through choice and by design. I want to challenge spirit to share the physical in a way that enriches or more simply pleases.

In recent work I have begun to explore various media and means of expression that are more personal than commercial. In drawing, in ceramics, in metal sculpture, in glass – particularly figurative works, I try to express energy, movement, or emotion. I feel that often these elements are intimately connected and that they each morph through cause and effect, that sometimes it isn’t possible to separate them or to determine any absolute relativity among them. I am intrigued with the possibilities of exploring the expression of these dynamics.

I have also recognized that I have an ongoing fascination with tool making, so that sculpture of all types captures my imagination during the process as well as in the inception, completion, and presentation – I like the work; I enjoy the problem-solving itself.