promise
The College of Wooster Art Museum, Wooster, Ohio
30 October – 9 December 2001
Exhibition view
Promise included artworks near, if not quite within, the categories of sculpture, drawing, and painting. The titles for these pieces—fortune, ruin, virtue, desire, economy, and plenty—might be allusions to the practice of living. My visual sources included a 18th century Philadelphia carpenter’s manual, a lithograph published in 1875 by Currier & Ives, and a twentieth-century, quilt pattern book.
The painted words of muse conjure the goddesses of artistic inspiration against a background of three, brightly-colored wallpaper panels. Ruin is made from a pile of concrete rubble covered in 23k gold leaf. In fortune, a burned image of a wood ladder leans against a square of leaf-patterned wallpaper. A scattering of painted, wooden signs—describing character traits such as industry, honesty and perseverance—surrounds the ladder. Such characteristics suggest a foundation for reaching the manifest rewards of honor, riches, long-life, and influence.
muse, 2001, enamel paint on wallpaper, 96 x 288 inches
muse (detail)
desire (detail), 2001, wood, enamel paint, 72.75 x 90 x 90 inches (including base)
ruin, 2001, concrete rubble and 23k gold leaf, approx. 24 x 36 x 36 inches
Exhibition view showing fortune (2001 version), burned wood, wallpaper, paint, approx. 156 x 152 x 18 inches; and ruin, 2001
fortune (detail)
Related reading
Objects of Devotion, Even, statement by Michael Mercil, August 2001