W.A. Ehren Tool

Instagram: Ehren Tool

Website: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/magazine/ehren-tool-war-cups-smithsonian.html

Bio: Born in Charleston, South Carolina (USA) in 1970. Joined the Marine Corps (1989), deployed with 1st Marine Division in Desert Shield and Desert Storm (Gulf War One). Tool was a Marine Embassy Guard in Rome and Paris and was Honorably Discharged as a Sergeant after just over 5 years of active duty. Ehren Tool has made and given away more than 25,000 cups since 2001. His work is heavily influenced by his time in the Marine Corps and the strange ways military and civilian cultures collude and collide. Tool received his BFA from the University of Southern California in 2000 and MFA from UC Berkeley in 2005. Tool is the Senior Laboratory Mechinician and sometimes teaches in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley. Tool has received a United States Artist Grant. Tool has work in museums nationally, including the Smithsonian’s Renwick Museum. Tool has shown and done residencies across the US, China, Vietnam, France and Germany.

Statement: “I just make cups” is the only statement about my work I am really comfortable with. I hope my work can be a place for people to start conversations about unspeakable things. My cups have been called memorials. Peace is the only adequate war memorial. I think most war memorials are failures at best and usually promote war as good and noble. I have made and given away almost 25,000 cups since 2001. Mostly to Veterans and their families or others who have been affected by war. In the face of all of the horror going on in the world making cups seems a very small and impotent gesture. I don’t know what else to do honestly and sincerely. I just make cups.