When Words Take Form

by Lisa Watts

Name: Anne Baughman
Hometown: Frankfort, Kentucky
Major: Studio Art
I.S. Title: Retold: Interpretations of the Influences of Storytelling
Advisor: Walter Zurko

They hung in the gallery, ethereal yet recognizable as fine wire sculptures in the shape of dress forms. It was only on a second or third look that the viewer realized that the wire patterns, which gave the forms the look of lace and textures, were also words in script.

"These sculptures explore my awareness of storytelling in the lives of the women who wore them and my awareness that it is through stories that I know these women as well as I do," wrote Anne Baughman ’05, a studio art major, in introducing her I.S., "Retold: Interpretations of the Influences of Storytelling."

"Most of the dress sculptures are modeled after dresses that belonged to members of my family. Four generations of female relatives are represented through the pieces Ü my great-grandmother, grandmother, aunt, mother, and myself."

Baughman isn’t surprised that it took viewers a while to get the words and sentences. "I wanted the text to be as legible as possible, but I also wanted the forms of the dresses to be composed largely out of words. That was more important to me than the legibility of every single word. These pieces and the fragments of stories on them are extremely symbolic to me, but this fact is almost invisible to viewers.

"I believe that the creation of forms entirely out of text symbolizes the power and strength of words — literally and figuratively — to create an image, to form and mold it, and to help it hold its shape."