Inevitably, the winter chill brings with it endless conversations regarding road conditions—a general preoccupation with the safety of transportation. Thus, while driving the streets of Reno today, I found myself contemplating my tires. (Yes, those rubber rings upon which my car was flying along the icy roads.) Proud of my newly-bought “all-weather” tires, I began to wonder to myself: where did my old tires go? The point at which tires are no longer “safe” on which to drive is the moment they lose their original function—and after this “loss,” what forms can these pieces of rubber take?

Chakaia Booker gives us one answer.

An eccentric artist coined the “Queen of Rubber Soul” by an ArtNews critic, Booker puts old tires to new use. Recycling rubber strips and treads, she slices and weaves together this black, durable medium. Lyrical but also somehow sharp, Booker’s tire-constructions are overlapped surfaces—simultaneously reminiscent of textile and tattoo markings.
Simply dictated by her medium, Booker’s works refer to notions of movement and transportation, labor, and industry. Yet she often speaks of the broader social implications of the rubber rings withwhich she works. An African American female artist, Booker calls out her racial identity as source material: the treads of tires, she feels, reference many African cultures’ body-painting, scarification, and symbolic motifs. Furthermore, these re(tire)d objects symbolize a certain stalwart strength; my people have been “tread” upon, Booker implies, but we’re durable.
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Given the current “Holiday Season,” Booker’s piece entitled No More Milk and Cookies feels particularly timely. Though the phrase likely evokes childhood cookie-jar reprimands, Booker says the piece is moreon an adult scale—critiquing our commercially-driven society. Has material desire taken us to an obsessive—excessive—level? What happens when there are no more milk and cookies? Can supply ever truly be endless?
(Will Santa always have goods to deliver—and cookies to eat?)

Chakaia Booker manages to insert discarded tires into an artistic sphere—giving these objects a certain level of functionality. Though no longer safe to drive on the streets of Reno, Booker’s tires navigate a new—and refreshingly thoughtful—avenue of communication.