A Poetry of Odd Opposition

A Poetry of Odd Opposition
by Glen R. Brown
To the left, a feathery divi-divi tree grows absurdly slanted in the trade winds
sweeping the island of Aruba; to the right, a horizontal plume of smoke escapes
a factory stack on the windy industrial flats of Cleveland: in the juxtaposition of
these uncannily similar yet dissimilar images from one of Mary Jo Bole’s pictorial
books lies a useful synopsis of her art. The tree, a living emblem of perseverance,
and the smoke, a noxious symbol of dispersion, encapsulate not just the general
qualities of permanence and impermanence but also the strange, insoluble symmetry
between them. The wind, the agent in this revelation, is an intangible energy only
evident through its effects on a diverse array of media. As a metaphor in Bole’s
work, the wind plucks things up, carries them off and deposits them together in
extraordinary ways and in the process opens gaps in the blank wall encircling the
ordinary perception of things. This metaphor deals not in the declarative but in
the ambiguous: the vaguely grasped insights that arise from odd analogies and
ostensible quirks of fate. It wreaks havoc with logical oppositions such as ugliness
and beauty, making one seem to appear within the other. Most importantly, it
unsettles the conventional perspectives that placate the mind and prevent thought
from wandering after inexplicable desires and confronting unnamed fears.
In Bole’s art most viewers are likely to encounter an unsettling quality arising
not from the artist’s tendency to sensationalize the ultimate fear — to raise the
“Divi Divi Tree” and “Smoke”, Bole’s introduction page from the book Rust/Rest,
1996, conceived and organized by Mary Jo Bole, Berry van Boekel and Birdie
Thaler, 7 1⁄2 x 8 inches, hardcover book, edition of 400, signed by the artists;
stencil print: Knust Press (Extrapool), The Netherlands. Photo: Tony Walsh.
repressed specter of death with a coarseness that would be relatively easy to dismiss
— but rather to embrace the fear of death in the way that some people make pets
of tarantulas or poisonous reptiles, developing a kind of fondness out of familiarity.
As a child Bole lived near Cleveland’s Lakeview cemetery: a shortcut to the local
bakery, the “private park” where she walked her dog, and the resting place of
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“old aunties” and other relatives whose names — Winifred, Gertrude, Matilda,
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Ludmilla — evoked a musty Victorian world of heavy lace, mourning jewelry,
finger bowls and dark drapery. With lurid fascination, at the age of six Bole
discovered, buried among her father’s record collection, a copy of Dear Dead
Days, a volume of Charles Addams’s macabre and freakish source-material for
his Addams Family cartoons. Later, Michael Lesy’s Wisconsin Death Trip, a photographic and journalistic record of dementia, alcoholism, assaults, and funerals in
a turn-of-the-century Wisconsin township, reinforced her association of time with
a transformation of the ordinary into the “exotic, singular, and strange.”
Although Bole has penned essays for the magazine Morbid Curiosity and an
anthology entitled Death’s Garden, her own books are primarily pictorial. Like
the valises of Marcel Duchamp, they contain images that both document and
transform her earlier works, not simply by reinterpreting them through heavily
stylized representation. Bole’s books also contextualize these earlier works amid
Initially
cryptic references to sources of inspiration while comparing and contrasting them
to parallel images. The earliest of these books, Rust/Rest, a 1996 collaboration
with then husband Berry van Boekel and artist Birdie Thaler, jumbles bridges
Thankful Subjects, 1997,
5 3⁄4 x 10 1⁄4 inches, softcover book,
edition of 230, signed by the artist;
stencil print: Knust Press (Extrapool),
The Netherlands. Photo: Tony Walsh.
inspired by her father’s pastime, the references to stamp collecting were
expanded and given greater conceptual complexity in Bole and
and rainbows together with Trees of Life, Faiyum death portraits, rains of
van Boekel’s second collaborative book, Splitting Pictures. Composed of stencil-
sperm, haloes of flowers, and tombstone panoramas. The allusions to photo
printed, scored pages, complete with gummed backing, the book was realized
albums and scrapbooks are overt. More subtle are the implications of a
through the contributions of thirty artists from five countries, each of whom
stamp collector’s portfolio, introduced as a concept near the beginning of
produced unique stamp images for the project. The concept of a circulating art,
the book through the image of a nineteenth-century Spanish postage stamp
something capable of breaking from the pages of the compendium and dispersing
provided by van Boekel and revived at its end through an affixed cello-
itself across the contexts of the external world, reverses the acquisitive metaphor
phane envelope that actually contains artist’s stamps for the viewer’s use.
of the scrapbook and makes Splitting Pictures more a point of departure than a
site of summation. Bole, however, seems more at home with the practice of gathering disparate images together, and her next book, a solo effort titled Thankful
Subjects, is a collection of rust-belt sketches, photographs of funereal sculpture
and pithy bits of text describing activities such as scavenging washed-up debris on
the shores of Lake Erie or collecting old “bricks, quack medical devices, 45s, light
Stamp sheet from the book Rust/Rest (collaboration with
Berry van Boekel and Birdie Thaler), 1996.
switch plates, aprons, hand-painted souvenir plates, purses, zines, stamps, religious
doo-dads, printed board games, souvenirs in general, Lake Erie glass, thrift store
paintings, postcards, barbed wire….”
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To this list of melancholy cast-offs, salvage, and ephemera can be added a host of
mortuary imagery and paraphernalia. Bole has long been fascinated by the pathos
of the contradiction between the reality of human materiality and the aspirations
of consciousness to overcome it that funerary monuments embody. A self-stylized
cemetery aficionado, she has made an on-going research activity of visiting tombs,
graves, crypts, mausoleums, catacombs, cenotaphs and other sites associated with
commemoration of the deceased. This interest has given rise to a series of major
sculptures and installations relating to mortuary monuments. Despite their cultivated morbidity, these works are not celebrations of death. Bole’s sculptures are
perhaps best regarded as palliatives, a means of diminishing the psychological
power of death by endeavoring to understand it more intimately. In this process
she does not assume bravado or adopt the lampooning attitude that is found, for
example, in Día de los Muertos skeletal caricatures. Her purpose instead is to
confront the real human emotions that arise from the loss of loved ones, although
she necessarily adopts a somewhat detached, if not actually disinterested, perspective on those emotions.
Bole’s foray into the production of ersatz funerary monuments began more than
ten years ago. Her important 1993 exhibition My Yard (at the Wexner Center
for the Arts) included a monument devoted to the poignant commemoration
of deceased children, while another monument of sorts, Tree of Life — Future
Tense, a 1600-pound bronze form containing a living red oak sapling, evoked the
same theme metaphorically. The concept of preserving something
fragile and fleeting beyond the corruptive forces of touch or even
the outside air carried over into the two obelisk-shaped “kochelofens” also featured in the exhibition. Bole’s original intention
was to encase these faux mortuary sculptures in delicate and airy
wood-framed-glass membranes, a plan first formulated through
below: Cemetery in Dubuque, Iowa
[inspirational source for Tree of Life
(Future Tense)]. Photo: Mary Jo Bole.
right: Tree of Life (Future Tense),
1991–93, bronze, photo decals,
china paint on porcelain monument
plaques, ficus tree, 76 x 73 x 57 inches.
Photo: Tony Walsh.
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some early sketches the artist made in graduate
Bole incorporated hand-blown German glass to
school. The disappointing results of her initial
achieve the gently undulating surface effect
attempt to realize these enclosures, which
that she recalled from visits to Cleveland’s
seemed heavy and tank-like in contrast to her
glass-enclosed memorial to assassinated
vision, were ultimately omitted from the exhibi-
president James Garfield. The title My
tion. Bole, however, acquired the necessary
First Dutch Lesson derives from the
skills for working with leaded glass that
residency during which she acquired
same year during an artist residency at
her glass-working skills. It refers to
the Europees Keramisch Werkcentrum
Bole’s introduction to the Dutch lan-
’s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands.
guage, which occurred on the grounds
Since then, she has relied on expert aid
of a cemetery she had stopped to visit on
with the more complicated aspects of such
the drive from the airport to the Centre.
work. Without this assistance, as well as
No dictionary was needed to translate the
the more general help of a host of factories,
phrase “Hier rust...” with which began the mournful epitaphs on many of the
tombstones. In reference to the similarity between the Dutch “rust” and the
friends and students over the years,
Bole contends that her most
English “rest” — not only phonetically but in terms of the euphemism associated
ambitious works could never
with the loving interment of a human body — Bole incorporated the words in
bold relief on either side of the pedestal beneath the paired lambs. This kind of
have been realized.
The major sculptures that Bole has
produced since the mid-1990s have continued to explore the process of memorializing
the dead, often through mosaic making. This laborious technique was, for example,
employed to form the distressing images of grief on the floor of her 1997–99
enclosed-glass sculpture, My First Dutch Lesson. In this work, a pair of tessaraecovered lambs set on a stepped pedestal symbolically attest to the innocence of
the deceased. These gentle creatures and the mosaic base beneath them are
encased in a seemingly airless space of a transparent cupola. In this structure,
left: Signs of Embracing, 1993, bronze,
mosaic with silicone grout, photo
decals, china paint on porcelain
monument plaques, slip cast tile,
cement, “lucky” stones & wood,
156 x 53 x 53 inches. From the
exhibition My Yard, Wexner Center
for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio.
Photo: Richard K. Loesch.
right top: My First Dutch Lesson,
1997–99, mosaic, leaded glass, bronze,
silicone, carbide refactory, glass beads
on wire & ceramic, 36 x 60 x 36 inches.
Photo: Tony Walsh.
bottom: My First Dutch Lesson (detail).
Photo: Heather Protz.
cultural connection, which for Bole represents the universality of certain attitudes
toward life and death, has accounted for many of the distinctive formal characteristics that her sculptures have acquired. One of the most intriguing of these
is her tendency to compose some works by heaping up
a profusion of similar forms, a practice inspired by
memories of a 1991 visit to the astounding “Hill
of Crosses” near Siauliai in Lithuania, a site
which Bole has described as the “most
moving spot on the globe.”
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The innumerable crosses studding the
Lithuanian hill like hairs on the back
of a recumbent beast produced for Bole
a powerful evocation of the vastness of
death and the legions that it has consumed. In an early attempt to harness
this rhetorical potential — a poignant
sculpture titled Nipped Buds in which
a gently rounded mound of children’s
mittens reflects upon the vast numbers
of premature deaths — she employed
the multiple in an obviously metonymical fashion. In her more recent work,
however, multiplicity has formed a
subtler connection to mortality, as in
the whimsically titled Odd Luck — a
colossal u-shaped heap composed of
thousands of slip-cast black porcelain
horseshoes of varying sizes. Here the
forms suggest not lives in themselves
but rather the diverse hopes for perpetuating those lives: the various optimisms
about evading death that are ultimately
as impotent as the lucky horseshoes
that represent those hopes. Embedded
in the dark tangle of porcelain goodluck charms are plaques upon which
left: Hill of Crosses, Lithuania (inspirational source for Nipped
Buds). Photo: Mary Jo Bole.
above: Nipped Buds, 1993; floor piece: slip cast porcelain
over airplane nose cone, 36 x 48 x 48 inches; wall piece:
mosaic on wood, 30 x 40 x 3 inches. From the exhibition
My Yard, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio.
Photo: Richard K. Loesch.
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Bole has inscribed images and phrases that characterize life as a game of chance
in which some draw longer straws than others, but none can ever hope to win.
While works like Odd Luck reflect only abstractly on death, the 2000 sculpture
Granny’s Necklace, conceived as a memorial bench, is intimately tied to Bole’s
haunted sense of her own deceased ancestors and their legacy in her life. Having
grown up in an environment redolent of Victorianism and rememberance, she
chose to top her bronze commemorative bench with a ceramic mosaic depicting
portrait photographs of nineteenth-century women. In the
beads of a pearl necklace, which runs like a Roman guilloche pattern around the borders of the image, she
repeated a series of faces of Victorian ladies who,
right: Granny’s Necklace (A Bench), 1997–2000, mosaic with
silicone grout, bronze, wood, 17 x 56 x 41 1⁄2 inches.
Collection of Pamela & Steve Hootkin, NYC.
Photo: Chas Ray Krider.
opposite: Granny’s Necklace (A Bench) detail.
Photo: Chas Ray Krider.
above left: Odd Luck, 1997–2000,
mosaic, bone china, “twist of fate”
monument plaques with computer
process decals and china paint on
porcelain, 19 x 102 x 112 inches.
Photo: Tony Walsh.
above right: “Twist of fate” monument
plaque (detail from Odd Luck).
Photo: Chas Ray Krider.
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due to the inherent limitations of working with tesserae, appeared as distinct
Odd Luck. Only later did she discover, after fortuitously encountering some
though related. At the center of the mosaic, she constructed a collage incorporating
examples in a Cleveland pet cemetery, that the J. A. Dedouch Company was
an old postcard image depicting three famous Rochester sisters who took the
producing traditionally hand-colored photographic tomb plaques much closer
nineteenth-century oddities stage by storm with their luxuriously long
to home. Devising a residency for herself at the company’s Chicago factory, she
tresses — a picture of vanity and the brevity of human
learned the laborious technique of transferring photo-
beauty, to be sure, but also an ironic symbol of
graphic images to enamel plaques; she then
immortality, since human hair can in fact
utilized her skills to produce a number
be preserved indefinitely.
of these for incorporation into subsequent works. Inset into her larger
The themes of vanity and
sculptures, the elliptical convex
preservation — ephemerality
plaques are evocative of
and immortality — are
cemetery portraits but also
recurrent in Bole’s art,
of jewelry: lustrous cabo-
generally in a curious
chons or the crystalline
reciprocity. She notes, for
domes guarding cherished
example, the irony in the
portraits in lockets.
“attempt to cheat fate and
live vicariously through the
The mourning brooch —
pretentiousness of your
made stylish during Queen
death marker.” Two recent
Victoria’s interminable show
sculptures — Great Granny’s
of grief for the deceased Prince
Mourning Brooch and Ossified
Albert — is the embodiment of the
Alliance — explore this idea in rela-
impermanence of vanity and the perma-
tion to the photographic portrait plaques
nence of death. In Great Granny’s Mourning
still made for some cemeteries. In the early
Brooch, an eight-foot circular sculpture in which an
1990s Bole worked with an Italian company to produce such plaques so she could specifically integrate them into her sculptures, and
in 2000 she traveled to Vicenza to make the “Twist of Fate” porcelain plaques for
immense enameled-steel plaque is surrounded by a carved brick
opposite: Great Granny’s Mourning
Brooch, 2003–05, enamel on steel,
Belden brick, bronze, 8 monument
plaques (photogenic drawings: enamel,
china paint on copper), 8 x 84 x 84
inches. Photo: Chas Ray Krider.
above: Ossified Alliance, 2003–05,
enamel on steel, Belden brick,
6 3⁄4 x 47 x 42 inches.
Photo: Tony Walsh.
bezel inset with smaller plaque adornments, the jewel becomes a funereal monument. The central image, repeated on the smaller plaques, hearkens back to the
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mound of mittens in Nipped Buds. Representing a rectangular life-sized field of
In the end, Bole’s singular art cannot
snow-white children’s socks, it connotes purity, innocence and small lives. For
be denied this kind of optimism born
Bole the sculpture is primarily a reflection upon lineage: the long dead of the dark
of pessimism. Optimism is the source
past and the burgeoning of new lives. The implications of mourning are for Bole
of much of the humor that shares
relevant both to the deceased generations who came before and to the descendents
space with pathos in her observations
that she has not left to carry on. Children, after all, are one’s living memorials:
on life. Her newest artist’s book, MJ’s
themselves mortal but at the same time invested with a parent’s hope of vicarious
Daily Spy History — hot off the Knust
lingering after death.
press in the Netherlands — contains
ample evidence of each. A record of
In Bole’s work as a whole, the relationship between the brevity of life and the
Bole’s musings during a 2004 residency
will to sustain some aspect of it eternally is a recurrent theme that lifts her efforts
in Dresden, the Spy History was
above the level of mere morbid fascination. If the ultimate inability to escape
originally painted on the pages of a
death’s grasp confirms the tragic in human nature, the attempt to do so — at
two-and-a-half by three-inch blank
least vicariously — has undeniably accounted for some of the heights of human
book purchased from a German street
achievement. Brevity begets longevity; mortality inspires the
vendor. The minuteness of this volume
immortal. This paradox is perhaps most evident in the great
only amplifies the expansiveness of
mortuary monuments of the past: the colossal tomb of
Bole’s thoughts as they radiate across
Rameses II, the vast terracotta army at Xian, the glorious
history (from Augustus the Strong’s
New Sacristy of San Lorenzo, or any of thousands of similar
purported creation of three-hundred
examples. The paradoxical principle, however, is implicitly
offspring to the death of thousands
at work in all aspects of creativity. Bole’s sepulchral sculp-
caused by incendiary bombs in 1945);
tures do not acquiesce pessimistically in the inevitability
language (idioms such as “the black hole of summer” and neologisms such as the
of death but rather affirm the poet Wallace Stevens’s obser-
Euro-critical “Teuro”); customs (candy-filled cones “to sweeten the first days of
vation that ‘death is the mother of beauty’. In Bole’s work,
the theme of human mortality is ultimately a prelude to
confirmation of the potential for transcendence through
art, a triumph that is only possible because life itself is a
losing proposition.
opposite: Mary Jo Bole working in
her Columbus studio on mosaic for
Winifred, Ruth, Winifred (a companion
work to Granny’s Necklace). Photo:
Kevin Fitzsimons (from On Campus, OSU
publication, 1/6/05 edition).
above: Dead Flowers as Incendiary
(detail), 2004, photo retouch paint,
watercolor, coffee, rubbing alcohol,
28 x 33 inches.
right: “Dancing ladies” from MJ’s Daily
Spy History, 2004–05, original watercolor book available as: 3 x 2 1⁄2 inch
softcover book, edition of 400, signed
by the artist; 4 3⁄4 x 3 7⁄8 inch softcover
book, edition of 100, signed by the
artist; stencil print: Knust Press
(Extrapool), The Netherlands.
school before they turn sour”); and oddities (a hair shield, the freak-antler room
at the Moritzburg Schloss). The images prompted by
these diverse claims on the attention are exemplary
of Bole’s art, which in its scavenging and juxtaposing
is always intuitive, strange, and revelatory.
Glen R. Brown is associate professor of art history
at Kansas State University.
DEAR LITTLE TWIST OF FATE
Mary Jo Bole
16
Teaching
Artist in Residence
2005
2005
2001–05
2003/04
2002
Solo Exhibitions
Selected Group
Exhibitions
Selected Grants
Selected Publications
and Catalogues
Collections
2000
1999
1993
1988/89
Artist in Residence; Sanitary ware “Gustavsberg”
Factory, Stockholm, Sweden
Artist in Residence; Women’s Studio Workshop,
Rosendale, New York
(Andy Warhol Foundation Grant)
Artist in Resident Europees Keramisch
Werkcentrum ’s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands
Artist in Residence; John Michael Kohler Arts
Center at the Kohler Factory, Kohler, Wisconsin
1995 Ann Nathen Gallery; Chicago, Illinois
1993 “My Yard” Installation in Gallery, B; The Wexner
Center for the Performing and Visual Arts;
The Ohio State University; Columbus, Ohio
2005 “A Matter of Place”, Pomerene Center for the Arts,
Coshocton, Ohio
“A Tale to Tell”, John Michael Kohler Arts Center,
Sheboygan, Wisconsin
2003 “The Vitrified Image”, International Invitational
curated by Paul Scott (UK), Hyde Art Gallery,
Grossmont College, El Cajon, California
“Are you sitting comfortably?”, The Water Closet
Workshop, The Bowes Museum, England, The
Collins Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland, The Hatton
Gallery, Newcastle University, England
2002 “Connections: Ohio Artists Abroad” organized by
the Ohio Arts Council, Curated by Susan Channing,
Riffe Gallery, Columbus, Ohio, (Catalogue), Spaces
Gallery, Cleveland and the Weston Art Gallery,
Cincinnati, Ohio
“Materials Speculations”, The H&R Building,
The Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City,
Missouri, (Catalogue Essays by Donald Kuspit and
Roger Brown)
2004
2002
2002
2004
Morbid Curiosity, Issue 8, “Lasting Images by
Bole”, Pgs 54–56, Automotism Press, San
Francisco, California
2001 Morbid Curiosity, Issue 5, Automatism Press,
San Francisco, California
“Watercloset Workshop” Rohsska Museet,
Goteborg, Sweden
2005
2004
1999
Education
Alice F. & Harris K. WESTON ART GALLERY
2002 “Dear Little Twists of Fate”, Seigfred Hall,
School of Art, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio
2001 “Relics & Reliqueries”, William Busta Gallery,
Cleveland, Ohio
2000 The Barth Galleries, Columbus, Ohio
Ohio Arts Council Project Grant, Columbus, Ohio
Level II Grant, College of the Arts, The Ohio State
University, Columbus, Ohio
Individual Fellowship Grant, The Greater
Columbus Arts Council, Columbus, Ohio
1982
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November 18, 2005 — January 14, 2006
Full Professor, Department of Art,
The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Residency at Knust Press, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Residency at Belden Brick Company, Sugar Creek,
Ohio (self-organized)
Dresden Artist in Residence Exchange Program,
The Greater Columbus Arts Council, Columbus,
Ohio
Dedouch Monument Plaque Company, Chicago,
Illinois (self-organized)
Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito,
California (sponsored by the Ohio Arts Council)
Sculptures, Drawings and Bookworks by Mary Jo Bole
2000
1999
Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial
Fund Inc., New York, New York
Ohio Arts Council Individual Fellowship Grant
(in the Visual Arts)
Andy Warhol Foundation Grant through Women’s
Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York
1998 “Howling at the Edge of a Renaissance, Spaces and
Alternative Art in Cleveland,” Spaces Gallery
Cleveland, Ohio
Morbid Curiosity, Issue 2, “Smiling at Death: The
Fine Art of Mary Jo Bole” (Interview), Automatism
Press, San Francisco, California
1995 “Deaths Garden”, Automatism Press,
Loren Rhoads, Editor.
The Museum of Modern Art (Artist Book
Collection Archive) New York, New York
The Gustavsberg Factory Collection,
Stockholm, Sweden
Robert J. Shiffler Collection & Archive, Dayton, Ohio
1998
M.F.A., New York College of Ceramics at Alfred
University; Alfred, New York
1979
The Museum of Modern Art (Artist Book
Collection Archive) New York, New York
The Getty Museum (Artist Book Collection)
Los Angeles, California
B.F.A., Cum Laude; University of Michigan;
Ann Arbor, Michigan
1. Odd Luck, 1997–2000, mosaic, bone
china, “twist of fate” monument plaques
with computer process decals and china
paint on porcelain, 19 x 102 x 112 inches
2. My First Dutch Lesson, 1997–99,
mosaic with silicone grout, leaded glass,
bronze, carbide refactory, glass beads on
wire & ceramic, 36 x 60 x 36 inches
3. A Child’s Metamorphosis, 1994–96,
leaded glass, bronze, glass beads on
wire, mosaic, wood, refractory,
59 x 55 x 55 inches
4. Thankful Subjects, 1997, 5 3⁄4 x 10 1⁄4
inches, softcover book, edition of 230,
signed by the artist; stencil print: Knust
Press (Extrapool), The Netherlands
5. Tree of Life (Future Tense), 1991–93,
bronze, photo decals, china paint on
porcelain monument plaques, ficus tree,
76 x 73 x 57 inches
6. Winifred’s Lilacs, Quadrant, 2005,
enamel on steel, 24 x 18 inches
7. Winifred’s Lilacs, 2004, photogenic
drawing: enamel, china paint on copper,
7 x 5 inches
8. Yesterday’s Owl (A Rug), 2003, Belden
brick, 4 3⁄4 x 50 1⁄2 x 43 1⁄2 inches
9. Granny’s Necklace (A Bench),
1997–2000, mosaic, bronze, wood,
17 x 56 x 41 1⁄2 inches. Collection of
Pamela & Steve Hootkin, NYC
10. Ossified Alliance, 2003–05, enamel on
steel, Belden brick, 6 3⁄4 x 47 x 42 inches
11. Splitting Pictures, 1997, conceived and
organized by Mary Jo Bole and Berry
van Boekel, 8 1⁄2 x 11 3⁄8 inches softcover
book, edition of 350, signed by the
artists; stencil print: Knust Press
(Extrapool), The Netherlands
Aronoff Center for the Arts
12. The Perforating Machine at Knust Press,
1997, watercolor, 14 1⁄8 x 17 inches
13. Rust Rest, 1996, conceived and organized by Mary Jo Bole, Berry van Boekel
and Birdie Thaler, 7 1⁄2 x 8 inches,
hardcover book, edition of 400, signed
by the artists; stencil print: Knust Press
(Extrapool), The Netherlands
14. Dead Flowers as Incendiary, 2002–03,
photo retouch paint, watercolor, coffee,
10 x 25 5⁄8 inches
15. Dead Flowers as Incendiary, 2002–03,
photo retouch paint, watercolor, coffee,
19 1⁄2 x 24 7⁄8 inches
16. Dead Flowers as Incendiary, 2004,
photo retouch paint, watercolor, coffee,
rubbing alcohol, 28 x 33 inches
17. Study for Dead Flowers as Incendiary,
2003, drawing: enamel, china paint on
copper, 5 x 7 inches
18. Study for Dead Flowers as Incendiary,
2004, 2 photogenic drawings (blue,
brown): enamel, china paint on copper,
5 x 7 inches each
19. Wilted Flowers: Winifred’s Magnolia,
2003–04, 5 photogenic drawings
(chocolate, prune, blue black, black
blue, caramel): enamel, china paint on
copper, 7 x 5 inches each
20. Snowflakes, Ohio, Headlands, Path,
2002, photo retouch paint, watercolor,
coffee, rubbing alcohol, 20 x 29 1⁄2 inches
21. Snowflakes, 2003, photogenic drawing:
enamel, china paint on copper,
7 x 5 inches
22. Sole Heir, 2004–05, photo retouch
paint, watercolor, coffee, rubbing
alcohol, 28 x 33 inches
650 Walnut St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
23. Wilted Flowers: Winifred’s Lilacs,
2004, 4 photogenic drawings: enamel,
china paint on copper, (3) 7 x 5 inches,
(1) 5 x 7 inches; 1 photogenic drawing:
enamel, china paint on steel, 10 x 8 inches
24. Study for Yesterday’s Owl, 2003,
2 photogenic drawings (brown, green):
enamel, china paint on copper,
5 x 7 inches each
25. Bench Moulding Study for Granny’s
Necklace, 2000, photo retouch paint,
watercolor, 17 1⁄2 x 22 3⁄4 inches.
Collection of Christine Strehl.
26. Study for Hair, 2004, 2 photogenic
drawings (white, tawny): enamel, china
paint on copper, 7 x 5 inches each
27. MJ’s Daily Spy History, 2004–05,
original watercolor book available as:
3 x 2 1⁄2 inch softcover book, edition
of 400, signed by the artist; 4 3⁄4 x 3 7⁄8
inch softcover book, edition of 100,
signed by the artist; stencil print: Knust
Press (Extrapool), The Netherlands
28. MJ’s Daily Spy History, 2004–05,
3 gang–printed page samples;
stencil print: Knust Press (Extrapool)
The Netherlands
29. MJ’s Daily Spy History, 2004–05,
6 page enlargements; stencil print:
Knust Press (Extrapool) The
Netherlands
30. Owls, 1996, photo retouch paint,
watercolor, 15 x 14 inches
31. Bat, 1996, photo retouch paint,
watercolor, 13 x 15 inches
32. San Francisco Bay Area Cemetery
Research Diner Mugs, 2002, 3 mugs
(pet cemetery; Colma, CA cemetery;
nipped buds): Buffalo china, china paint,
decals, 4 x 4 1⁄2 x 3 1⁄2 inches each
Thank You
Thanks to Maureen Bloomfield, Ruth Bole, Willi Born, Carmel Buckley, Randi Channel,
Malcolm Cochran, Beth Coleman, Katie Collins, Todd DeVriese, Krista Grecco, Chris Gose,
Marthe Grohman, Mark Harris, Tim Hutchinson, Michelle Lewin, Dana Marshall, Kami
Meighan, Shauna Merriman, Sarah Myers, Ryuji Noda, Benjamin Organick, Thomas
Piontek, Petra Schilder, Rhian Kelly-Simon, Paul Simon, Berry van Boekel, Wim van
Vonderen and everyone else who has helped me over the years.
Belden Brick Company, especially John Belden, Kevin Fruchey, Doug Mutschelkanaus,
Jeff McIntire, Jim Meyers, Gary Stein, Bill Swinderman and Don Weaver
The College of the Arts, The Ohio State University
The J.A. Dedouch Company, especially, Vicki Jones, George Musinski
and Dick Stannerd
Installation view: Upper Gallery (left), East Gallery (right).
Photos: Tony Walsh.
33. Wilted Flowers: Gilda’s Euphorbia
(Fresh to Ossified), 2003–04,
5 photogenic drawings: enamel, china
paint on copper, 7 x 5 inches each
34. Wilted Flowers: Winifred’s Bleeding
Heart, 2003–04, 5 photogenic drawings
(green, mint, red, smoke, lime): enamel,
china paint on copper, (1) 5 x 7 inches,
(4) 7 x 5 inches
35. Smothered, 2004–05, photo retouch
paint, watercolor, coffee, rubbing
alcohol, 28 x 33 inches
36. Family Portraits, Now and Then, 2004,
photo retouch paint, watercolor, coffee,
rubbing alcohol, 28 x 33 inches
37. We Will Go to Nature: Love Lies
Bleeding (I–VIII), 2003–04, 8 photogenic drawings: enamel, china paint on
copper, 7 x 5 inches each
38. So Long: Leaching, Fuming, 2004–05,
pâte de verre, soapstone, 18 x 31 x 2
inches
39. Nipped Buds, 2003–04, 4 photogenic
drawings (blue, blood, brown, moss):
enamel, china paint on copper,
7 x 5 inches
40. Great Granny’s Mourning Brooch,
2003–05, enamel on steel, Belden brick,
bronze, 8 monument plaques (photogenic drawings: enamel, china paint on
copper), 8 x 84 x 84 inches
41. California Topiary, 1997, photo retouch
paint, watercolor, 13 1⁄4 x 18 3⁄4 inches
42. California Topiary, 1997, photo retouch
paint, watercolor, 14 1⁄4 x 18 3⁄4
52. Headlands Barracks Provocative
Toilets, 2004, drawing: enamel, china
paint on copper, 5 x 7 inches
43. Dead Bugs, 1999, photo retouch paint,
watercolor, coffee, 17 x 22 3⁄4 inches
53. Headlands Barracks Provocative
Toilets, 2004, photogenic drawing:
enamel, china paint on copper,
5 x 7 inches
44. Dead Bugs, 2004, photo retouch paint,
watercolor, coffee, 23 1⁄2 x 29 1⁄2 inches
54. Suicide-Resistant Toilet, 2005, Belden
brick, 18 x 25 x 9 1⁄2 inches
45. Dead Bugs, 1999, photo retouch paint,
watercolor, coffee, 17 x 22 3⁄4 inches
55. Tiny Sink, 2005, Belden brick,
8 1⁄2 x 7 1⁄2 x 8 1⁄2 inches
46. Wall of Drawings, 1961–2005
56. Barracks Toilets at Headlands, 2003,
photo retouch paint, watercolor,
22 x 27 1⁄2 inches
47. Toilets for Your Friends, 2005, 9 x 12
inch stamp sheet edition of 300, signed
by the artist; stencil print: Knust Press
(Extrapool), The Netherlands
50. History of Penal Institution Sanitation,
2 Views, 2000–01, Kohler prison sink
(Chilton™ model), silkscreen decals,
china paint, 18 x 15 x 15 inches
51. Alcatraz Cell with Kohler Prison
Fixtures, 2004, photogenic drawing:
enamel, china paint on copper,
5 x 7 inches
The Ohio Arts Council, especially Susan dePasquale and Ken Emerick
Everyone at Knust Press, (Extrapool) The Netherlands, especially Alfred Boland,
Jan Dirk de Wilde, Joyce Guley and Jolanda Wijdezen
The staff of the Weston Art Gallery: Dennis Harrington, director; Kelly O’Donnell,
assistant director; and gallery assistants, Sara McDulin and Allen Smith
The Weston Art Gallery installation crew: Sharon Buckner, Stephanie Cooper,
Chad Cully, Rob Deslongchamps, Rolf Kuhn, Tim McMichael, Alan Sauer,
Allen Smith and Patrick Williams
Lenders to the exhibition: Pamela & Steve Hootkin and Christine Strehl
Exhibition Sponsors: Barbara & Gates Moss and the Weston Art Gallery Support Committee
2005–06 Weston Art Gallery Season Sponsors: Jackie & Mitch Meyers
and Starbucks Coffee Company
Alice F. & Harris K. WESTON ART GALLERY
Aronoff Center for the Arts
650 Walnut St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-2517
www.CincinnatiArts.ORG/Weston
[email protected]
Ph: 513.977.4165
Fax: 513.977.4182
48. Gustausburg Factory Souvenir Blanks,
2001, 2 factory blanks, silkscreen decals,
china paint, 5 x 3 x 4 inches each
49. Headlands Barracks Provocative Toilets
Diner Mug, 2002, Buffalo china, china
paint, decals, 4 x 4 1⁄2 x 3 1⁄2 inches
The Greater Columbus Art Council and the Dresden Residency Exchange Program.
Kunsthaus Raskolnikow (gallery and pension [where I stayed]) especially Iduna Böhning
So Long: Leaching, Fuming, 2004–05, pâte de verre, soapstone,
18 x 31 x 2 inches. Photo: Tony Walsh.
The artist would like to acknowledge the J.A.
Dedouch Company which was west of Chicago in
Oak Park, Illinois since the late 19th century and
closed on March 1, 2004. Monument plaques were
made by Bole at a makeshift residency at Dedouch
from June 2003 to March 1, 2004. Bole refers to
them as photogenic drawings; a term used by the
earliest photographers to describe work that is a
middle ground between photography and drawing.
To view more images from the exhibition, visit www.CincinnatiArts.ORG/Weston
Since opening in 1995, the Cincinnati Arts Association’s Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art
Gallery has established a reputation for innovative programming, award-winning publications and museum-quality exhibitions. A catalyst for, and integral member of, the Cincinnati
arts community, the Weston Art Gallery’s mission is to present and support the visual arts
of the tri-state region through exhibitions and special programs. Its objectives are to foster
an awareness and appreciation of the visual arts among area residents, and to support the
development of professional and emerging artists of the region.
front cover: Ossified Alliance (detail), 2003–05, enamel on steel, Belden brick, 6 3⁄4 x 47 x 42 inches
rear cover: Wilted Flowers: Gilda’s Euphorbia (Fresh to Ossified) (detail), 2003–04, 5 photogenic
drawings: enamel, china paint on copper, 7 x 5 inches each