About the Work

When you search for the words “family” and “Christmas” together on Google, the top result will lead you to a website for psychotherapy. Whereas those who do not have a family often dread Christmas, others see the holidays through a web of idealized expectations. Our families are the center of gravity in our emotional universe, the focal point for an invisible force that keeps pulling us back towards them. Family ties are like gravity in that their strength decreases with distance, but their range is infinite and there is no way to shield against them. You cannot escape your family, and this is especially true during the holidays.

Iris Musolf’s Yule Balls reflect this tension. The artist’s material of choice is concrete, which she casts into a variety of shapes: Blow-up dolls with an obvious purpose or, as in this case, Christmas balls. She removes the hangers, fills the glass balls with the viscous material, then re-attaches the hangers. Once the concrete is completely set, she wraps the ball in cloth and carefully chips off the glass mold to reveal the raw surface of solid concrete: smooth at the bottom, but rough and porous at the top. The light and delicate qualities of this fragile ornament and the playfulness of its colorful reflections have vanished and given way to the heavy roughness of a gray rock. The brilliant symbol of lightness, joy, and superficial consumerism has been transformed into an object whose reminiscence to a hand grenade is not accidental. It reminds us of the explosive potential that often lingers over Christmas gatherings with the family.

Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that a few delicate shards of colored glass remain near the attachment point. They bear witness to the fact that lightness and heaviness are inextricably linked. Hard moments only become bearable if there is a flicker of hope, and moments of levity can only truly be appreciated when we are aware of their ephemerality.