I Feel Like a Choreographer

Artist Lois Teicher (American, born 1938)

Date1981

MediumPainted wood, wheels, steel

Dimensions5 Units, each 42 × 16 × 9 3/4 in. (106.7 × 40.6 × 24.8 cm)

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LineGift of the artist, 2012

Object numberUAC5727

DescriptionAs mysterious as they are, the five wooden boxes that comprise I Feel Like A Choreographer have a simple, utilitarian feel to them. With their forest green paint jobs and wire mesh screens, they could be taken for recycling bins at a state park campground, with convenient casters attached for easy transport. Artist Lois Teicher, however, has a better interpretation. Speaking informally one afternoon at the Scarab Club, where the piece made a rare appearance during a 2019 solo exhibit, the sculptor said the sloped platforms atop each box suggest podiums, while the mesh-covered boxes themselves evoke audio speakers — pointed back at the person standing at the podium; anyone speaking at one of these conceptual lecterns, therefore, would be in direct dialogue with themself. The number of boxes, Teicher offered, may correspond to the five members of her family — her husband, herself, their daughter and two sons — while the wheels mounted under the structures imply an ongoing life’s journey. Teicher revealed that she sometimes creates her sculptures before she knows what they’re about, trusting that she’ll discover their meanings once they’re finished.

Text by Sean Bieri
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Lois Teicher was born in Detroit in 1938. She had already married and had three children when she began taking art classes at the College for Creative Studies in 1963; she graduated 16 years later, then quickly earned her master’s degree in art at Eastern Michigan University 1981. Early on she worked in ceramics and found object constructions, but her mature works are made from plates of aluminum or steel, such as the whimsical two-ton “paper airplanes” she created in 1994 for the lobby of Bishop International Airport in Flint. Still a Detroiter, as of 2019 she works out of a studio overlooking the city’s Eastern Market.

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