I have just finished an upload of a new set of Flickr images assembled by Andrea Mason, an IMA conservation intern. She worked this summer with a contracted furniture conservator named Mark Minor to return a sideboard by Eliel Saarinen to its original glory.
As a riveting segment this summer, the IMA Blog will be featuring a Tuesday Photo of the Week, highlighting juicy tidbits of info including works of art, artists, news, events, or locations.
Does the war in Iraq make you angry? Sick? Disgusted? Do you want the world to know exactly how you feel? Thornton Dial certainly did. Never heard of Thornton Dial? Well, that is definitely a loss I hope to remedy.
Thornton Dial is an African American artist whose work is in the southern vernacular tradition, which means he is self taught with no formal art education and lives and works in the South (Alabama to be exact.) He makes sculptures and assemblages (wall hangings with things protruding from the surface) using discarded everyday objects that would otherwise wind up in a land fill. So essentially Dial is also an environmentalist. If you look closely at his art, not too closely because there are sharp edges that can leave nasty cuts on delicate skin, you will see mattress coils, paint can lids, old shoes, used clothing, buttons, chicken wire (he is also a chicken farmer), and plastic twine. Almost nothing in the Dial household wound up in the trash. He nails objects to a very large canvas that has been attached to a board, adds enamel spray paint and covers the whole thing in Splash Zone compound, the material used to keep boats water tight.
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