Tin Lizzy
Actually, this iron woman is named Marla. Folk artist Irving Dominick used his ten-year-old granddaughter, Marla, as his model.After a lifetime creating ductwork for heating and air conditioning systems, roofing, gutters, and "anything else that could be made from metal," Irving Dominick began to create the objects he calls his "art." Marla, with her permanent wave hairstyle, eye-catching lashes, and snappy shoes, is the best surviving example of the whimsy and care that inspired his metal figures.
Source: Lynda Roscoe Hartigan. Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990).
Pictured top: Irving Dominick, 1916–97, Marla, 1982, cut, bent, soldered, and riveted galvanized iron, 59 x 35 1/4 x 14 3/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr.
Pictured bottom: Irving Dominick, 1916–97, detail of Marla.
Actually, this iron woman is named Marla. Folk artist Irving Dominick used his ten-year-old granddaughter, Marla, as his model.After a lifetime creating ductwork for heating and air conditioning systems, roofing, gutters, and "anything else that could be made from metal," Irving Dominick began to create the objects he calls his "art." Marla, with her permanent wave hairstyle, eye-catching lashes, and snappy shoes, is the best surviving example of the whimsy and care that inspired his metal figures.