Tough like the Blue Jay
From the Art Complex Museum, in Duxbury, Mass.:
“In 2019, on the grounds of The Art Complex Museum, Donna Dodson and Andy Moerlein installed ‘Seeking Higher Ground.’ This is the second outdoor sculpture that the museum has been lucky to display. According to folklore, the Blue Jay is symbolic of clarity of thought and taking action. ‘Seeking Higher Ground’ is a clarion call to heed the warning signs of climate change. It reflects a hope that humans can unite to affect those changes needed to adapt and survive - like the Blue Jay.’’
“To see more of their work and to watch a short video they have created please
Sculptural signs of the zodiac
“Rooster,’’ by wood sculptor Donna Dodson, in her show “Zodiac,’’ at the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Mass., Feb. 2-May 19. (Photo by Joan Boivin). The show references the animals associated with the Chinese and Western zodiacs.
Matriarchal in Mass. gallery
“March of the Matriarchs’’ (wood sculptures), by Donna Dodson, in her current show, until Nov. 4, at Boston Sculptors Gallery.
This is Ms. Dodson’s latest series of mysterious animal-human hybrid wood sculptures, this one featuring a sculpture group configured as a chess set.
Dodson cites the genesis of her chess set in five ‘‘mermaids’’ she created in 2016, inspired by ship-prow carvings. She told the gallery: “I wanted to do more with the series, so I set myself the challenge of making an entire chess set.” This idea, the gallery says, let her to build on the “concept of sculptures that interact directly with each other, while reflecting on the interactions among species that have nothing to do with us humans.’’
She read books about chess, noting, “The original chess set was composed of king, general, and male military figures….The queen arrived at a time when powerful queens reigned in England, Russia and Spain.” “{M}y set is maternal—I am thinking about family matriarchies, the realm of power in women's lives, how women wield power and the bonds between women in families.”