The Farmer's Wife and the Colored Graveyard

  • Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
  • Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
  • Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
  • Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
  • Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio
2005
Wood, tree branches, mannequin parts, plow parts, metal, wire, clothing, toy doll, stuffed animals, paint cans and lids, tires, cow bones, decorative concrete pedestal, clock, carpet, burlap, plastic bottles, nails, bricks, and foam on wood
89 x 100 x 60 inches
Collection of
Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Description

Rural women are the subject of Dial’s large two-sided assemblage The Farmer’s Wife and the Colored Graveyard, created from 2005 to 2007. The protagonist in this unruly construction is the truncated mannequin figure of a white woman, surrounded by a clock, a baby doll, a water fountain, bird figures, flowers, barren tree branches, the jawbone of a cow, and other referents for the passage of time and the life cycle. On the reverse side of the piece is the image of a graveyard, a further symbol of life’s constant succession of death and renewal, which Dial links to the generative powers of women. —Joanne Cubbs