Cinder Blocks and I-Beams
The cinder block, an iconic and elemental material in modernist architecture, has provided Ingram with the inspiration for a series of different works. In 2007, he fabricated a number of cinder block shapes out of wood and combined them with cast concrete shelves, reversing the cinder block and pine plank shelving units that filled innumerable dorm rooms and first apartments. Later, he used a water jet to carve a series of cinder block shapes out of granite and limestone that he salvaged from buildings slated for demolition. Not long after, he cast an actual cinder block in a matching gray foam, initiating his FMU's (Faux Masonry Units), which he has developed into projects like Float and Cinder Block City.
In each case, Ingram took the concrete cinder block and consciously made it out of a different material, shifting its use. In a similar vein, steel I-beams are milled them out of wood. No longer able to support weight as originally intended, Ingram's beams pierce the walls at unusual angles creating useless architecture or take the form of freestanding floor sculptures.