Artist Statement 

JOHN EASTMAN
Working Man is constructed out of metal, wood, copper coil, and work gloves. I approached this project by thinking of these materials as artifacts of a greater industrial culture. These materials are evidence of the human geography of the Pittsburgh environment that surrounds and unavoidably influences me.

The inadvertent restraint of capitalism
The capitalistic society in America enables hard work, investment, and entrepreneurialism to foster its citizens’ growth. An open society, and open and free markets grant individuals the opportunity to become almost anything they want and to gain financial prosperity.

But along with the nation, the American middle class citizen can find him or herself buried in debt and working multiple jobs to keep up an often larger than life standard of living. Stress is a major factor in this lifestyle. Coerced by the constant barrage of buying pressures, they have succumbed to a life of working in professions that they are not happy in, at places that do not enable personal growth, purchasing things for themselves and family that they may not really need. They find themselves unhappy, trapped in professions they want to leave, and unable to pursue goals and objectives that are in their hearts. Their passions have been swallowed by debt pressures. They are restrained and led to struggle alternately with and against these ties.