Pilgrim's Planting
Cynthia Short
July 15 – September 30, 1987
Cynthia Short, Pilgrim's Planting, 1987; welded steel rod, copper plated wire, plant material; Female Figure: 30" H x 30" W x 36" D; Metal Hedges: 30" H x 12" W x 12" D
Artist Statement
Pilgrim's Planting presents a broken spiral of natural and sculpted steel hedges in the centre of which kneels a woman with her arm around a dog. Her hand rests on the right paw of the dog as if about to help him finish digging the hole in front of them. These welded steel figures have unearthed a series of four torso-like artifacts and contemplate the last excavation, an empty hole.
The woman is absorbed in the same act of searching which preoccupies most of the female figures in my work. They are here in this world, but searching for another. I make my women life-sized and three-dimensional in order to underline our presence in the physical world. Their actions, however, serve no material or "practical" purpose. These are actions of the inner self, the soul if you like, which is looking for its home.
The hedges bring to mind images of mazes or labyrinths and infer a search for the centre. At the core of Pilgrim's Planting is the hole into which the woman and the dog gaze. It is an opening of the world onto another world: a passage from spatial to non-spatial images, from temporal to non-temporal references.
A pilgrim travels to a place of importance. This pilgrim has traveled through a spiraled path of hedges. The spiral can be seen as a schematic image of evolution, growth or transformation. This theme or transformation is also carried through in the transition from natural to welded hedges and in the metamorphosis of the torso shapes. These images are metaphors for the inner transformation of a pilgrim -- the physical journey which parallels or even precipitates a spiritual journey.
