52
B+W
plugs, lightbulbs and bolts. In the basement
of the store was an electric pipe-cutting
machine and threader. Pops showed me
how to use it. It was quite dangerous. But he
showed me how to thread pipe by hand and
with the machine, and he showed me how
to cut it. The wood floor in the basement
was the colour of burnt umber. The oil from
the machine – you had to use oil to cut with
and to thread – had permeated the wood
of the floor, and the steel shavings, whether
black pipe or galvanised, were always a silver
colour and were forced into the floor by
people’s feet.
So there was a
terrazzo effect, a
mosaic, without
a subject.Tools by Jim Dine is published in hardback
by Steidl, price €40. ISBN 978-3-86930-647-6.
See teidl.de.›