Shelters

Indigenous shelters, made from repurposed materials, offer a transformational experience of moving from outside to inside. These are protective spaces that transform the texture of light, painting emotional experiences.

Taken from an essay by Phoebe Hoban in Rizzoli Book, STEVE TOBIN MIND OVER MATTER
“ADOBE is one of Tobin’s more political works. This igloo-shaped piece was created out of almost one thousand unused M-60 bullet-resistant tank windows that were welded together, leaving a circular opening on its top and a diamond-shaped door in its side. From the outside, it looks like a shiny glass bee-hive.”

The “GLASS LANTERN HOUSE” 6w x 8d x 11h is made from 100+ year-old hand-tinted glass slides for projection. They reflect a time when every photo was made to perfection and craftsmanship was old world, made with enduring values. The house has a peaked roof like a church. All of the world’s cultures and values are contained in this house of humanity as one. With a projection bulb inside the house, you can fill a room with these archival images of a time before now.

Steve Tobin created the 9’ high x 8’ wide x 6’ deep bronze MATZOH HOUSE in 1996 from 1500 individual bronze castings of Matzoh.

“When Moses came down the mountain with the word of God… he saw the Israelites worshipping a golden calf. Moses smashed the tablets which defined for the future of western man that the body and the spirit were in conflict. He was not instructed by God to do this and was punished. The MATZOH HOUSE is meant to heal this rift by showing that the spirit is housed by the body. From the outside the MATZOH HOUSE is golden and “the house of the Jews” made from food. This represents the body of the Jews. When inside the viewer cannot see the golden bronze nor the form of the matzoh. One can only see the light coming in through hundred’s of thousands of tiny holes, like stars and a heavenly light, the spirit.
The spirit is at home in the body-house of the Jews.”