ABOUT THE STUDIO NAME: Mansavage refers to his workshop as “The Rubber Spatula Studio.” This comes from a personal edict to, “not to let any of a good thing go to waste.” Mansavage calls himself a “cheapskate” on most everything he does for himself, but he is also a passionate home chef with a taste to splurge on good food. In food, he appreciates beautiful garnishes, complementary combinations of “weird” ingredients that get paired with simple everyday pantry staples, and also seeing hints of unfamiliar or unique spice flavors in a tasty dish - characteristics sometimes apparent in artwork. His sense for making tasty cuisine of his own and his personal thriftiness make the rubber spatula his favorite kitchen tool - because if he, “creates something tasty, then none should be left in the bowl or the pot - and the best tool to capture every last drop of tasty goodness is the simple and under-appreciated rubber spatula.” He takes that same approach to his artistic raw materials, making use of the “good stuff” he finds. Fallen timber, broken or discarded furniture and dumpster-diving on construction sites are some favorite sources for his sculptural material.

THE “MOVING HANDS” PROCESS: Mansavage particularly enjoys the act of making wood collage: cutting and moving - and moving and cutting - of hand-crafted pieces of various types of timber. He makes wood shapes and assembles various components until he achieves a “not-too-precious” formulation.

“I don’t reflect,’ Hans Arp wrote in 1963. ‘The forms come: pleasing or strange... They’re born of themselves… I only have to move my hands…. The forms that then take shape offer access to mysteries and reveal to us the profound sources of life.”

Like the practice of architecture, he sketches a lot of ideas for his work. However, a finished sculpture work comes from the process of “keeping hands moving in the shop,” rather than meticulously preparing or planning a piece ahead of time on paper. “The work is way” to a completed sculpture, which is to say he designs his work more by doing and making it in-situ with the raw materials, and less by drawing and refining in advance on paper or with small mock-ups. (Ironically, the exact opposite of the professional practice of architecture.)

In architecture school, Mansavage was a teaching assistant and also a student manager of the school’s wood-shop and model-making shop. In times of school stress, he always found pleasure and a calmness in the transformation of wood under the ordinary act of cutting and sanding it - changing and revealing texture and grain in various ways. Cutting, sanding and rubbing a simple block of wood was his version of kneading a stress ball.  To this end, his wood art pieces are truly “not-too-precious” and he invites viewers to touch them if they desire. (Splinters and all.) “Cracks, damage, signs of age, dirt, knots, rough live-edges and saw marks on cut timber are awesome sometimes” he says, “and the further application of simple sandpaper on wood can reveal unknown colors or patterns, develop a suppleness like fabric or leather, or it can be burnished to the honed hardness of a polished stone.”

Even though the sculptures can be seen as “assemblages” - a finished piece is usually seen by Mansavage as a process of removal of material: mainly shavings, chips, carvings and dust. A lot of dust. “Making sawdust can be a very relaxing activity any day. Probably something I’ll enjoy even when I’m 100.”