Barbara Westfall

TITLE: Winter Stew
DATE: 2012
MEDIUM: bovinae bone, willow, glass
DIMENSIONS/RUN TIME: 32″ x 28″ x 3 1/2″
DESCRIPTION/STATEMENT: The circle and wheel are symbols I use to represent the interconnection of all living things. I used a bovine bone from a beef shoulder pot roast I prepared years ago. The bone is a figurative and literal anchor for the center of the piece. I had been holding onto the bone in my studio for about 10 years, because I enjoyed the circular shape and the hole in the middle where the marrow once was. The bone was cooked in a slow stew, with carrots, onions and potato using a recipe I learned from my mother, who learned it from her mother (and beyond). It is their reinterpretation of an old eastern European recipe which cooks the meat slowly, until it falls off the bone. I like the recipe and prepare it for my family in the winter months. In the center of the bone is a carefully cut piece of transparent glass. Anchored in a radial design are willow branches I cut in spring, stripped of their bark–which also take on a bone-like quality. The work is intended to be suspended from the ceiling, so it turns slowly like a bone in a bubbling pot. The work represents my connection to the plants and animals that are part of my food source, an integral part of my sustenance on this planet. –Barbara Westfall

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