Lauren Kalman: To Hold…

To Hold… is a meditation on desire, control, and loss. The desire to hold close. The ability to smother. The presence of absence. To Hold.. is a collection of vessels and bronze tools. The bronze tools are produced from castings of the artist body. They are produced in segments and used in concert to articulate the movement of the body’s joints. Used with multiple assistants, the castings together function like a human-scale puppet in the hot shop to cradle class vessels. The carefully controlled form of the vessel is lost with the imprint of the body leaving both a permanent distortion of the original form and the lasting imprint of the absent body. Additionally, the transparency of the glass creates a void or absence, holding space for loss.