Hold My Hand and We'll Swab the Decks One Last Time

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Hold My Hand and We'll Swab the Decks One Last Time

2012

Canadian, born Salt Springs Island, 1975

Clay in the hands of Alwyn O’Brien is like lyric poetry - personal expressions of the artist’s experiences and life stories. Hold My Hand and We’ll Swab the Decks One Last Time is a vessel form that has come unraveled. It is based on a silver or gold container in the form of a ship, a Nef, which was an extravagant table ornament during the Medieval period and Renaissance. Owned by the very wealthy, a Nef was most often a container for salt and costly spices. In the eighteenth century, the royal French porcelain manufactory at Sèvres created elaborate potpourri vases in the shape of a Nef. The form as well as the reticulated, fish-scale patterning on the lids of these Sèvres vessels inspired this work, but the impetus to create such a piece comes from O’Brien’s relationship with an elderly resident in the retirement home where she works. Toward the end of his life, this gentleman regaled her with stories from his time as a midshipman during WWII. In O’Brien’s hands, the Nef becomes the mop this man used to swab the decks.

Porcelain with glaze

14 1/2 x 21 1/2 x 14 1/4 in.

Margaret E. Fuller Purchase Fund, Modern Art Acquisition Fund, and Decorative Arts Acquisition Fund

2012.28.2

Not currently on view

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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