vehicle for all of my plans by Nisa Blackmon

Sculpture

Copper, steel, vitreous enamels, waxed linen

10.5 x 6.5  x 6.5  inches

t is an awkward and unreliable vehicle indeed, my physical, mental and emotional body, upon which I am forced to rely to bring my work into the world. It is prone to unpleasant surprises these days. It is exhausted by the current societal and political dysfunction, the constant and repeated frustrations of lately-diagnosed ADD and the feeling that the avalanche of unfinished to-do lists is going to win in the end. But it also has big plans and fond hopes and a yearning to make beautiful things that make a difference in the world and to the people I love. There is considerable instability, wheels threatening to come off and many, many winds that frequently interrupt and blow me off course. I know I am not alone in this struggle. So we push on, all of us together in our strange and fragile vehicles, inscribing our story upon the skin of our creations, seeking the routes to joy in our making and in our world.

A strange, hybrid enameled vehicle, with body and wheels of formed and cold-connected copper, bears a cargo of enameled copper talismans. Its slender steel mast structure carries a flurry of rumpled and enameled copper messages, mantras and reminders, strung securely (if not logically) on lines of waxed linen.