Fishing lures are small objects with surprisingly large memories attached to them.
Their colors, shapes, names, and finishes were designed to attract fish, but they also became part of a child’s visual world. A tackle box could contain dozens of them, each promising that the next cast might be the one.
That’s where American Material Memory begins. The lure is a manufactured object, but its meaning comes from the places it traveled: the river, the lake, the dock, the boat, or the shoreline where someone once waited for a tug on the line.
From the Artist:
I grew up in Algonac, Michigan, right on the St. Clair River. We had a dock that ran 150 feet out from our front yard.
We'd swim in the summer, skate in the winter, and fish every chance we could from this dock and, eventually, from a boat we bought.
Every once in a while, I'd find a wooden plug or a plastic lure all tangled up in seaweed. That's where I found this one. It washed up along our seawall, and I plucked it out and cleaned it up the best I could.
Fishing lures are small objects with surprisingly large memories attached to them.
Their colors, shapes, names, and finishes were designed to attract fish, but they also became part of a child’s visual world. A tackle box could contain dozens of them, each promising that the next cast might be the one.
That’s where American Material Memory begins. The lure is a manufactured object, but its meaning comes from the places it traveled: the river, the lake, the dock, the boat, or the shoreline where someone once waited for a tug on the line.
From the Artist:
I grew up in Algonac, Michigan, right on the St. Clair River. We had a dock that ran 150 feet out from our front yard.
We'd swim in the summer, skate in the winter, and fish every chance we could from this dock and, eventually, from a boat we bought.
Every once in a while, I'd find a wooden plug or a plastic lure all tangled up in seaweed. That's where I found this one. It washed up along our seawall, and I plucked it out and cleaned it up the best I could.
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