And on a windy day it got caught on a tree…

In the sculpture entitled, And on a windy day it got caught in a tree, Vivero extends her use of the “sliding signifier” further. In this work she has repurposed the net of a suburban trampoline that was unmoored by the wind and found by the artist caught in a tree in her neighborhood. Manipulated and set on the armature of a larger-than-life oval frame, the netting takes on several new meanings. It holds its old meaning as one of those surreal images that totally disrupts the safety of what we expect of the “norm” of our safe middle-class life in America after natural disaster, such as tree in a bathtub or a car on a roof. In this case, Vivero has at once added to our imagination by adorning the black veil with several clumps of long strings of sisal dyed green, different shades of tan, and black. These might suggest foliage of some sort, perhaps grass or leaves, some still green, some already going brown, and some black with dirt and grime. One long strand of netting twists around to the side and back of the oval, where it is anchored to a slab of rock and several large gold nuggets. Is this what remains of the back yard from which the trampoline came? If so, whence came the gold nuggets, and why? Clearly, there is much more to this image than a literal reading of the aftermath of a violent thunderstorm. In fact, the nuggets are actually wooden forms covered in gold leaf and the stone slab is actually concrete covered polyurethane. What appears heavy is thus light, what appears to be gold is merely wood, what appears monumental is merely trivial. On the other hand, perhaps the trivial is monumental. Perhaps the black veil is also intended to allude to a mourning veil, perhaps the dyed sisal and gold nuggets carry over allusions from Vivero’s other multi-accented works, and perhaps this piece has multiple transcultural (unstable) meanings. To me, the veil feels weighted and somber while remaining ephemeral and changing. The clusters of sisal seem almost to clutch at the veil like limpets or children afraid to let go, as the gold nuggets seem to drag the absent veiled spirit back to a place that is neither what it appears to be nor is as real as it seems. When I look at this sculpture, I think of two almost identical lines of poetry/song that mean very differently: one by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1842) entitled “The Rainy Day”:

“Into every life some rain must fall,

 Some days must be dark and dreary.”

And the second in a duet by Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots (No. 1 on the Harlem Hit Parade in 1944):

“Into each life some rain must fall
  But too much is falling in mine.”

(Excerpt from writing by Joy Sperling for Exhibition at Gallery 310 at Marietta College, Ohio, USA)