art ref
Pekka Jylhä
Beverly Buchanan
Untitled (Frustula Series)
Buchanan took a particular interest in the revelatory nature of ruins and their ability to expose the histories of a place and its former inhabitants. To make her multipart Frustula works, the artist cast pigmented concrete in molds she constructed from milk cartons. Borrowing a term from her work in biology for the structural casing of a cell wall, Buchanan conceived the Frustula as representations of ruins and time, striated deposits of history meant to commemorate quiet, often overlooked historical moments.
The work confronts the marsh’s history and lore as the cultural landscape that inspired confederate soldier and poet Sidney Lanier, to write the poem, Marshes of Glynn, in 1878. The poet is said to have frequented an extant live oak, named in his honor, located less than half-a-mile north of the sculpture. Marsh Ruins also pays homage to Igbo
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2–3. Beverly Buchanan working on Marsh Ruins, 1981. Collection of Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon