<b>Artist Lock Baker '99 Returns for Gallery Opening</b>
His latest collection, "Mythic Motorcycles", which will be on display in our Warner Gallery starting on Saturday, September 25th, includes four outrageous machines designed and built by Lock himself.
Lock has described his process, "When I build a bike, I get into a certain mindset. That mindset isn’t simply the visualization of the bike I’m trying to build, but the visualization of an entire miniature mythology. That mythology is necessary for me because each bike needs to fit into its own world. Usually, that world isn’t the one we live in now, usually its one partially based in history and in my own mind.
Often before I get the idea to create a certain bike, I become intrigued by some snapshot, a frame in a movie, a story I’ve heard, or just some image that comes to me in my dreams. It’s from this little snapshot that the entire picture of the bike becomes clear. Sometimes, it is my own ignorance of a particular time period in motorcycle history that allows me to build a unique bike. In other words, if I wanted a perfect replica of a boardtrack racer, I could simply look up pictures and research the history, and from that make a replica that would be perfectly true to the original. But often I choose NOT to do too much research, because I don’t want to have my creativity skewed by what has or hasn’t already been invented. I want to just see one photograph or painting and then shut myself in a room and let that idea gestate."
While at Millbrook, Lock focused on drawing painting, and theater set design, and after graduating in 1999, he spent time in Cleveland, Ohio riding and racing mountain bikes and honing his skills in mechanics, all while coming to understand principles of physics and geometry through very practical applications. It wasn't until his time at Connecticut College in New London, CT, where he majored in fine art and art history, that his focus turned to motorcyles. Shortly after graduating, Lock opened his own shop, Eastern Fabrication, where he continues today to build almost completely hand-made custom machines.
View Lock's Mythic Motorcycles, as well as Macab leather works by artist Heyltje Rose, in the Warner Gallery this weekend. It's one display that's guaranteed to get your motor revving...
