Music and Art together at Harmony & Hope, May 3, 2016
Sandy Hook 2012 Sculptor, Allen M. Spivack
Join us at Harmony & Hope for a day of music, art, and healing. Allen Spivack's work "Sand Hook 2012" will be on display all day.
Read on to find out more about his artwork.
Materials used: steel, silver-plated cutlery, pop rivets and fish line
Families often take pride in the legacy objects passed along from generation to generation. These include broaches, rings, paintings, furniture, photographs, a bible, a detailed family tree history or silverware. These items carry the weight of the family on their backs, including the family’s inspiring stories and magnificent mythology. Tales of struggle and triumph, of migration and misfortune, of compassion and violence. All of that has become absorbed by that family heirloom.
A friend of mine gave me the assorted pieces of silver-plated cutlery used in this piece. Over time, I came to understand that these knives, forks and spoons possessed a history of their own. What was their journey? Perhaps purchased to celebrate a wedding, then dispersed by divorce or death, bankruptcy or indifference. Who’s to know?
What becomes of a family’s legacy when it is ripped apart by a violent act?
The massacre by Adam Lanza in December 2012 of twenty 6-7 year old children and six adult staff at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT destroyed the heart and soul of these families and the community. The deformed and distorted cutlery in this piece represents the destruction of that legacy. These eating utensils cease to be functional items, their exquisite craftsmanship defiled. They now represent something that has been eternally lost and permanently scarred. These knives, forks and spoons can never be returned to their original purpose or be the legacy object for a family.
The children’s clothing arbitrarily placed around the base of the piece-a boot, gloves, a pair of pants-are lost objects I recovered during walks in the neighborhoods of Jamaica Plain, symbolic of the lost lives of these precious children.—Allen M. Spivack
