Nesto Gallery : A story of Chairs and Immigration
By Anne Kwok ‘21
It’s Thursday; the cold air and gentle drizzle of rain nudges students into the cozy basement of the AMC. The Nesto Gallery welcomes a distinguished guest: Kitty Wales, senior lecturer in Sculpture at the Boston University College of Fine Arts and an artist who has a hand for timeless pieces. The exhibition hall bustles with curious chatter as students file into the spacious room. Nibbling on a hearty piece of cheddar from the platter, I enter the room, expecting wide canvases on the pristine walls. Immediately, I am greeted by three peculiar, wooden sculptures.
Two dogs crouch on the floor as if they are about to stretch out their knobbly backs and play fetch. Their names are Camelback and Rushback. Their delicate frames are made of steel, and their lifelike skin is molded from brown clay. Both dogs were constructed with broken wooden chair parts. On their backs, they carry wooden chairs with extended pegs that meld into the dogs’ anatomy, creating a sense of balance and motion.
The dogs stand beside a sculpted woman. “Wayfairer” is a vivid depiction of an early explorer, and her attire makes her seem as if she had stepped straight out of her time period and into the art gallery. Her elliptical headdress covers her hair and most of her face; she dons a long gown also made of deconstructed chair parts. The obscure attire add onto the mystery of the woman’s identity, all the while adding a personal and individual feel to “Wayfairer.” Wales explains that the hat was a style choice since many women at that time had no reason to show their hair. The “secrets she holds under her costume,” in Wales’ own words, and the elegance with which she holds herself make the wooden woman incredibly timeless.
Wales was inspired by the stories of maritime exploration in the 1500s. She says she loves “narratives that are open ended.” Because most early ship navigators were represented by men, she was motivated to tell the story of the women navigators. “I think they had a lot of secrets,” contemplates Wales with a smile. Her rough sketches of her sculptures are inspired from Hans Holbein and Albrecht Dürer’s art. The apparently random use of wooden chairs, however, is not merely an aesthetic choice. These chairs came directly from Ms Wales’ old community in Maine and are the highlight of the art pieces; Wales thinks that since chairs are domestic objects that one has to leave behind when migrating, having to disassemble and bring pieces of home with you are the real burdens of travelling, especially for the subjects of her art: the explorers. The meaning of Wales’ piece is thus incredibly relevant in these pivotal times, as immigration becomes a topic of growing controversy the US. “In the end, migration is really about what travels with you, and what you leave behind,” she continues. For many immigrants, they leave behind their homes and only bring with them a sliver of hope for the future.
According to Wales, “Wayfairer” captures the “timeless endurance” of a navigator and wanderer. And what of the two dogs? “I thought the ‘Wayfairer’ needed some companions,” Wales chuckles. Wales modeled the two canine sculptures after her own dogs at home, whom she loves and is inspired by. Migration is about the people who move with you—wherever your loved ones are is home.
