Dorothy Day
1996
20th Century
37 x 18 1/8 x 8 in. (94 x 46 x 20.3 cm)
Charles Wells,
American,
(1935–2017)
Object Type:
SCULPTURE
Creation Place:
North America
Medium and Support:
Red Oak Relief
Credit Line:
Commissioned and Given by Dennis and Judy O'Brien in honor of Br. Daniel Burke's 50th anniversary as a Christian Brother
Accession Number:
96-SC-48
Gallery Label:
As Dorothy Day’s elderly face thrusts forward, I am struck how her determined jaw, her smooth mouth and nose contrast with a deeply gouged skull, roughhewn cheeks, scarred-over eyes.
Three thoughts:
The mystery of the poor. They are Jesus for us; what we do for them, we do for him. Day did not see Jesus in the poor with bodily eyes, but eyes of faith. A blinded oracle, scored eyes of wood speak of deeper sight.
Day saw life with the poor as unsentimental, enfolded in brokenness. Flesh mortified by cold, dirt; ears mortified by screams, noise; eyes mortified by sights of excretion, disease. Grooves and gashes mark solidarity in poverty.
Francis of Assisi suffered terribly from diseased eyes. Day re-embodied Francis’s example, renewing his charism of holy poverty in herself for our
modern cities and farms.
Warm, strong red oak, thus fittingly commemorates a defiant, daring life of love.
S. Joel Garver, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Philosophy
Current Location:
Art Museum : Main Hallway
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