“As you look at Heart’s Desire, project yourself into the fairy tale world of Dream Box. What it means to me may not be what it means to you…that you will have to discover for yourself.” – Gloria Vanderbilt.
Born in New York City, Gloria Vanderbilt spent most of her childhood in Europe. The artist is a modern “Renaissance woman”. She has been successful in her endeavors in all of the arts: visual, performing, and literary. An artist, actress, and writer, she has won awards in all three fields. She began her series of Plexiglas constructions, entitled Dream Boxes in 1996 after she started having “interesting dreams which related to objects that she came upon in flea markets…” She would bring the objects to the studio and “assembled the dreams into some kind of order in Plexiglas boxes so that they told a story…” These works are incredibly beautiful yet slightly disturbing; like dreams themselves, they are filled with mystery. Set along a winding pathway of weeping pines inside the Forest of the Subconscious, Heart’s Desire evokes many questions for the viewer and admirer to which the artist has tried to answer in an interview with a Grounds For Sculpture staff member in 2008. The central theme of Heart’s Desire “is a yearning that does not seem to end.” The artist states that there is no “it”, just a desire FOR “it.” In regards to a number of items in Heart’s Desire, the artist has stated that the dolls in the jar are babies awaiting birth, the stars bring about hope, the ice cube symbolizes hopes melting. The large standing doll with arms outstretched co notates compassion and healing. Meanwhile, the armless woman facing the compassion doll demonstrates pain, loss, despair, grief and loneliness. The heart in the clamp stands for the desire for “it”. The interpretation by the artist is stoic and humbling in many ways, yet open to interpretation as the viewer’s experiences come to the work in varied ways. Vanderbilt’s provocative and imaginative art urges the viewer to think as well as to appreciate. Born in New York City, Gloria Vanderbilt spent most of her childhood in Europe, before returning to the United States to attend Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut, and the Mary C. Wheeler School in Providence, Rhode Island. She pursued her art education at the Art Students League and the Neighborhood Playhouse, both in New York City. She had her first one-person exhibition of paintings at the Bertha Schaafer Gallery in 1952. Her collages of drawing, painting, fabric and decoupage were shown at the Hammer Gallery in 1969. So popular and inspirational were they that Johnny Carson turned his Tonight show over to the exhibition. Memory, one of her collages, was issued as a stamp by the United Nations to commemorate the World Health Organization and UNICEF. Vanderbilt has received numerous awards, including an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia and the International Fine Arts College in Miami, Florida. As well, she has been the recipient of the National Society of Arts & Letters Gold Medal of Merit and the Anti-Defamation League Woman of Achievement Award. | | 
Heart's Desire, 2008
plexiglas, mixed media
72" x 72" x 72"
Photo: Ricardo Barros.com |
