Shed and tree

  • Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: William Arnett, 1997
  • Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: William Arnett, 1997
  • Click on image to enlarge

    Photo: William Arnett, 1997
Description

Partially concealed among the trees, vines, and weeds that surround Gilchrist’s "office" are outbuildings, sculptural assemblages, healing devices, and combinations of objects far beyond the subject matter of most yard decoration. For example, a shed—at first glance unremarkable, similar to those seen throughout rural areas for the storage of farm implements—is here covered with the red glyph-like symbols found throughout the interior of Gilchrist’s house. This shed contains a rack of elk antlers; a variety of working light fixtures, including a Christmas-tree decoration of an angel in a wreath surrounded by blinking lights; bones of all sizes; and inverted cups on posts (much like constructions found in rural African American cemeteries throughout the South). There are also metal grills, grates, and grids, and bed backs with symbolic designs reminiscent of Kongo cosmograms of Central Africa and the so-called hex signs of Europe and the New World. Attached to a tree, looking down from above the shed, is a doll’s head, surreal and mystifying.