The Human Condition: The Stephen and Pamela Hootkin Collection Sept. 2014 | Page 40
Youngblood is simply an exceptional sculptor. Her touch
with clay is delicate and marked by economy of detail.
Everything is only just suggested, never fully represented.
black boxes. Much like those photographs, the frame
her in absentia. One is that she is a Native American
objectifies and controls the figure’s presence.
shaman. Neither part of that is true, although she has
Elise Siegel’s Twenty-four Feet (2004), is more Eart h Girl
lived among the Native people of New Mexico.
than mother. The female children are seated on wooden
Collectors tell stories of coming home to find a work
chairs but manifested only from the waist down. Art
(most often their portrait) inexplicably lying in pieces
In America critic Nancy Princenthal descibes them as
on the floor. Her work is extremely light; a gust of wind
“hollow bodies … But their emotional presence is made
could be the cause. But all of this conjecture only adds to
vivid by their feet. Flexed and pointed, toes curled and
the frisson of the work, which does seem to hide secrets
spread, they communicate with uninhibited eloquence,
and contain powerful spiritual essences that directly and
mitigated not one bit by the sagging, rumpled little
indirectly invoke the gods. That part of the legend I believe.
anklet socks with which every foot is shod.”
4
Youngblood is simply an exceptional sculptor. Her touch
Princenthal admits that it is difficult to make
with clay is delicate and marked by economy of detail.
contemporary comparisons with Siegel’s work. “Judy
Everything is only just suggested, never fully represented.
Fox’s suavely seductive painted-clay children come to
And one of the two works, Brahmin Bull (1987), a
mind, as do Kiki Smith’s cast-bronze figures drawn from
straightforward piece without much mystery, has a personal
fairy tales. But in Siegel’s pieces, there’s no allegory. No
importance. It’s the one that got away. In my head are
secondary language of psychological symbolism is at
images of maybe a dozen artworks, which my partner
work. Rather than serving as ventriloquists’ puppets for
and I should never have sold. The moment Brahmin Bull
adult expression, Siegel’s children seem to speak only for
passed out of our hands we felt loss and sadness, but it
themselves. Leaving us thereby at a loss for words is not
ended up with good guardians and we got visiting rights.
the least of their provocations.” 5
Everything about this work is exceptional. The modeling
One of the major artists in the Hootkin collection is
shows just enough of the hand to be identifiable without
Daisy Youngblood. She is a mysterious, rarely seen
being trite. The fire wrapped a red and beige chiaroscuro
figure, living reclusively, and with a very limited
over the surface, touching and darkening some areas and
output of work. Most of her collectors have never
missing others. The use of the wood as front legs as though
met her. As a result, legends have grown around
nature had repaired the beast adds a certain fetish quality.
In Romana (1987) mythic potency is pronounced. Formally
4 Nancy Princenthal, “Elise Siegel at Garth Clark,”
Art in America 93, no. 3 (March 2005): 137.
5 Ibid., 138.
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it is exquisite, particularly if you look at this figure from the
side in silhouette; the curve of the back is exaggerated,