Ward creates large sculptures using objects that he finds. This artwork is inspired by “bottle trees,” African American objects created to protect the home and often shown in yards to ward off evil spirits. Walk around the sculpture. Notice the different types of bottles and how they connect. Choose one bottle. What evil spirit or force would you trap inside?

Kids label from

2023

Gallery label from 2022

Vertical Hold is inspired by bottle trees, African American sacred objects that protect the home by trapping evil spirits. They are made by placing bottles on the branches of a tree. For this work, Ward collected discarded bottles on the outskirts of Sabbathday Lake, Maine, the last surviving community of Shakers (a Protestant sect known for celibacy and communal living). The bottles are suspended from the ceiling on a web of yarn whose pattern is evocative of a Shaker quilt. “The bottle was a metaphor for the idea of the spirit, something invisible but very present that can become a container,” Ward explained.

Medium Yarn and bottles
Dimensions 107 x 30" (271.8 x 76.2 cm)
Credit Gift of the Hudgins Family in memory of J. I. Nelson and Sarita Nelson-Nunnelee
Object number 744.2013
Department Painting & Sculpture

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Nari Ward

Jamaican American, born 1963 3 works online

Since the early 1990s, Nari Ward has gathered and laboriously reworked found odds and ends from his local neighborhood in Harlem, New York, into sculptural installations.

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