Daniel Toepfer

     Daniel Toepfer, Barbara Strand, and their dog Bambi drive alot. Together, they maintain a large house and church in rural, south-central PA and a small 20th century stuff store in The East Village. The store is named "Dullsville . . a quiet place to shop. " They also do shows in Indianapolis, Miami, Detroit, D. C. , Brimfield, Springfield, OH, Ann Arbor, to name a few. The van is always packed and moving, criss-crossing their hunting range, following the seasonal shows . . . post-modern hunters and gatherers, collecting and culling from curbsides, quarter box lots, 5-cent tables . . . from the beneficence of St VincentMorganMemorialSalvationArmyGoodwill . . . from countless stalls in endless malls . . . uncovering, rediscovering the beautiful, the ugly, the absurd, and always, the amusing material products from the post W. W. II years of American mass-produced, disposable cultural abundance. And they have been doing this for years.
     It is in moments of rest from ubiquity that Daniel assembles his creations. In his church basement studio, he sorts among the piles and boxes, pours over pieces and parts collected and saved, and transforms disparate pieces into a new unified object--fragments become whole; the popular, esoteric; the useless, useful; the many, one; the ephemeral, permanent; and aesthetic order, attained.