Artist reception: April 15, 5–8 pm
Exhibition dates: April 15 – June 30, 2004

Rebecca Welz: Wishing Poles and Other Incarnations
Gallery 555
555 12th Street, Oakland, CA
Lobby. Hours 7am - 6pm.
located in downtown Oakland
Open and free to the public. BART, AC Transit and Wheelchair accessible.

Presented by the Oakland Museum of California Professional Services division
Professional Services Exhibition Archive

Rebecca Welz, Wishing Poles, 2004, steel, plexiglass, paint, varnish, aircraft cable; Photo credit: Bernard Handzel

Throughout history people have been stringing objects together for symbolic purposes. As far back as 38,000 B.C., bones, teeth, stones and shells were strung together with plant fiber or sinew. These beads or ritual objects were meant to bring luck, give power, protect or fortify a bond with the spiritual world.

Today, they are used in prayer in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and many other religions. The forms I have been working with for many years evolve as a continuum, ideas build-ing directly from what went before. I am interested in the practice of selecting an object and interacting with it in some way—stringing it, writing on it, throwing a stone on it, tying a piece of paper on it.

The sculptures in my Wishing Poles series are arced steel poles, strung with small, vibrantly colored segments of plexiglas and hung from the ceiling. There are either two or three poles hung on one center strand of cable which enables the poles to rotate freely. The plexiglas pieces have been sanded and folded into geometric, origami-like forms that are painted and varnished to appear translucent in some areas and opaque in others.
— Rebecca Welz

Organized by the Professional Services division of the Oakland Museum of California.