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When I was younger, I would do this a lot.

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I would cut faces or pictures out of books

3
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and I would tape them to sticks--

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set them up in my room
and shine lights at them,

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so that when I turned my own lights off,

6
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they were reflected in my windows.

7
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I was trying to get over
being scared of this idea

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of this presence in my window.

9
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I wouldn't say that that actually helped.

10
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But it was sort of exhilarating.

11
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It was sort of fun.

12
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And it was the beginning of a process
that maybe is helping me.

13
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The voyeur in my work is not supposed
to be a scary or threatening presence

14
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in the way that I feel like it's often
portrayed in movies and novels.

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It's maybe somebody that feels
just outside the equation.

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The voyeur is actually
what I am in the process.

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["Dan Herschlein Looks Inside"]

18
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[Dan Herschlein, artist]

19
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I was driving out to Long Island each day
to work on these sculptures

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in the den in my parents house on Long Island.

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They gave me half of the room

22
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and rest of it was everything else
that was in the room,

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pushed over.

24
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The sculptures are very much
based on Long Island,

25
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and my growing up there,

26
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and my feelings of growing up there--

27
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and the specific kind of
aloneness that I felt there.

28
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Part of my fantasy about this place

29
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was that I was going to be able to
stay up all night working in here

30
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and be alone.

31
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But then my parents are sleeping

32
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and I can't even, like,
drill into the wood.

33
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Realizing that this
fantasy of solitude

34
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is just not even real.

35
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The "Night Pictures,"

36
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they're a sequential set of images

37
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that are of plaster reliefs on wood.

38
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They are different from other pieces

39
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in that they've really accepted
the fact that they're on a picture plane.

40
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It's using a rectangular form
to say the same thing that

41
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I often try to say with
a sculpture on the floor.

42
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What people deem to be creepy--

43
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categorize as horror--

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that's the language
or the genre

45
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I think that I'm working within,
is horror.

46
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The thing that I'm emphasizing
within that is

47
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desire for comfort
or need for comfort

48
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or even the ability of horror to comfort.

49
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Before I was even
making sculptures or anything,

50
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a close friend of mine died in a fire.

51
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I built up this leg

52
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that I made to look as if it was burnt.

53
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I kept coating it and coating it

54
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until it became the flesh of a normal leg.

55
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That was the beginning of me making
these more figurative sculptures.

56
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There's definitely fear involved.

57
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There's a pain to that.

58
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But it's more helpful than
just sitting with my own thoughts.

59
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I think it was important to do
something with my hands.

60
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There's certain body parts
in each sculpture that I'll cast.

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Cast my hands, my feet,

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my knees, my nipples.

63
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Those are the things that give
more a sense of reality to these things.

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It lets everything else fade
and break down at points.

65
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The big mission of mine
is reevaluating maleness and masculinity.

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The ability of a man to bury their own emotions

67
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to a point where they
can't even find them again

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is unparalleled.

69
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The headlessness is because of
the head just being totally inverted.

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It's absolutely just down inside the body.

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It feels really emasculating
in this really great way to me.

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It's a kind of self reflection.

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I am very anxious.

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I am scared.

75
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I am sad.

76
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But here are these moments where,

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if I can look at that at face value--

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see these things--

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maybe it's fine to be scared or sad

80
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or anxious.

81
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It's not such a threat or something.

82
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It's just normal.