Marlene Rose in Houston CityBook
Our Artist Marlene Rose is featured in the latest issue of Houston Citybook Magazine. 
Get to know this incredible museum artist by visiting her artist’s page on our website, or by visiting our Gallery in person!
Credit: Citybook’s Evan Black.
FREESTANDING OH
I see a circle, no beginning and no end, eternal. I saw an African headrest, used by a king who could not remove his crown, even to sleep. (Just because the King is asleep does not mean that he is not the King.)
I saw an especially resonant Japanese calligraphic mark, a circle hovering over a two-legged platform.
I saw these images coalesce into one of those cross-cultural pollinations that seem to affirm an underlying universal language of form and symbol.
I found that I needed to honor this glass in a stature worthy of its hidden import. As I made it, myriad meanings distilled themselves from the forming piece.
In the end, I liked most the description of the ring as eternal and spiritual, hovering over the headrest that is its base. Each needs but is separate and independent from the other.
The metal frame that holds the pieces in their proper relation to each other became an anthropomorphic creature, two strong legs splayed against gravity, and a cup delicately holding the infinity symbol in the place of the head. The strong steel frame’s earth colors are the corporeal body, and the vibrant blue glass is the spiritual infinity born of and escaping the body.
This having been said, I believe a work of art is never final. I love to watch the people who see it add life to it as they give it their special interpretation, their special name, as the work teases forth new meaning from their half-hidden memories and imaginings.
In the end, the glass and steel are the glass and steel, and the viewer endows the life inside. —MARLENE ROSE
I see a circle, no beginning and no end, eternal. I saw an African headrest, used by a king who could not remove his crown, even to sleep. (Just because the King is asleep does not mean that he is not the King.)
I saw an especially resonant Japanese calligraphic mark, a circle hovering over a two-legged platform.
I saw these images coalesce into one of those cross-cultural pollinations that seem to affirm an underlying universal language of form and symbol.
I found that I needed to honor this glass in a stature worthy of its hidden import. As I made it, myriad meanings distilled themselves from the forming piece.
In the end, I liked most the description of the ring as eternal and spiritual, hovering over the headrest that is its base. Each needs but is separate and independent from the other.
The metal frame that holds the pieces in their proper relation to each other became an anthropomorphic creature, two strong legs splayed against gravity, and a cup delicately holding the infinity symbol in the place of the head. The strong steel frame’s earth colors are the corporeal body, and the vibrant blue glass is the spiritual infinity born of and escaping the body.
This having been said, I believe a work of art is never final. I love to watch the people who see it add life to it as they give it their special interpretation, their special name, as the work teases forth new meaning from their half-hidden memories and imaginings.
In the end, the glass and steel are the glass and steel, and the viewer endows the life inside. —MARLENE ROSE