Ununionized work site
Work by Newburyport, Mass., artist Jennifer Day, in her show “Scaffold: Construction Sites in Miniature,’’ at Bromfield Gallery, Boston, through July 27
The gallery explains:
“Jennifer Day departs from her practice as a painter to return to sculptural work in found materials. The artist follows her life-long quirk for making 3-dimensional facsimiles in miniature and for giving old things new life.
“The scaffold asks why. Is something going up, coming down or just being fixed? Omnipresent in our landscape, scaffolding is more than something to walk under, or to be shrouded by tarps, but the scaffold is a symbol of our time and of all times. It suggests progress to be sure, the structure necessary for us to build upward and to be safe while doing so. But consider its temporal nature and the world it leaves behind once it comes down. New projects call again for help, repair or renewal and the endless cycle begins again. This exhibition of miniature sculptures addresses the absurdity of finish in a world that wants and needs to believe in its possibility.’’
State Street, Newburyport, circa 1906. Except for automobiles and trucks, and the disappearance of trolleys, the street now looks remarkably the same.