Daily Nourishment for June 6: D-Day Sculpture and Abstract Memorials
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 45 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 15 minutes
“Sculpting is engraving in people's hearts the spirit of infinite hope.” - Anilore Banon
Pause.
Take six deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale while looking at images of Anilore Banon’s Les Braves sculpture memorializing D-Day on June 6, 1944. You can also see a larger image here.
Prompt.
Read what Spencer Bailey wrote about abstract memorials in the introduction to his book In Memory Of: Designing Contemporary Memorials:
“When it comes to memorial making, it seems that, over the twentieth century, artists and designers realized that abstraction carries power that a figurative statue or literal-minded sculpture rarely, if ever, achieves. Vagueness, when done carefully, with intent and a desired effect, creates a vast array of connections between cultures, individuals, and emotions. Each visitor to an abstract memorial can have their own reading and response. Abstract metaphors allow for messiness, complexity, and contradiction. They embrace chaos. They are, as author Rebecca Solnit has written, ‘bridges across categories and differences.’”
Practice.
Anilore Banon was inspired by themes of courage, hope, freedom, and brotherhood while creating her abstract memorial sculpture Les Braves.
Freewrite for 10 minutes on these themes and/or the themes that inspire you in your creative work and/or anything that comes to mind in response to the quote by Spencer Bailey above.
Want More?
Watch this interview from 20 years ago with sculptor Anilore Banon.(Her interview starts at the 2:15 mark)
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Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Charlotte Donlon.
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