Snow Circles

Ferne Jacobs, Snow Circles, 1999, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 2001.32

Luce Center Label

Ferne Jacobs started work on Snow Circles while her mother was dying. The title was inspired by James Joyce's short story "The Dead," in which one character, Gabriel, watches snow fall on the Irish landscape and muses how it covers both the living and the dead. The circles within the woven walls of this vessel symbolize the cycles of life and are connected to show that one cycle moves onto the next, as a mother gives life to her children, who survive her passing.

Luce Object Quote

"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." James Joyce, “The Dead,” Dubliners, 1914

Title

Snow Circles

Artists

Ferne Jacobs

Date

1999

On View

Not on view.

Dimensions