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21 with Cube
Artist
Jesus (Jessie) Manuel Montes
(United States, born Mexico, 1935 - 2013)
Date2001
MediumCorrugated paperboard with acrylic
DimensionsH x W x D (CUBE): 19 11/16 x 19 13/16 x 19 13/16 in. (50 x 50.3 x 50.3 cm)
H x W x D (PEDESTAL): 31 7/16 x 16 5/16 x 16 7/16 in. (79.9 x 41.4 x 41.8 cm)
H x W x D (PEDESTAL): 31 7/16 x 16 5/16 x 16 7/16 in. (79.9 x 41.4 x 41.8 cm)
Object TypeSculptures
Credit LineKSU, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Friends of the Beach Museum of Art purchase
Object number2003.5
On View
Not on viewSelf-taught artist Jessie Montes, was born in Mexico and immigrated to this country in 1956, moving to Ford, Kansas, in 1957. After living in Michigan from 1960 to 1963, Montes returned to Kansas, residing in Dodge City until 2000.
In Dodge City Montes worked in the public school district as a maintenance person from 1977 to 1996. In 1990 Montes’s eldest daughter, a military nurse, was deployed to the Persian Gulf during the Gulf War. To alleviate his anxiety over fear for his daughter’s safety, Montes began making frames out of cardboard for the photographs she was sending home. This led Montes to develop his distinctive style and working methods. Using a razor blade, Montes cuts discarded cardboard he has salvaged into quarter inch strips, which he then uses as the basic building material for his elaborate and colorful constructions.
21 with Cube contains elements inspired by the visual language of Mexican arts and crafts, offering evidence of Montes’s Mexican heritage. Of particular interest is the tradition of yarn painting developed by the Huichol people of the western Sierra Madre. Yarn painting evolved out of the practice of making nierika, small devotional offerings. Huichol yarn paintings are made by inscribing a design on a wooden board covered with wax. Wool or acrylic yarn is pressed into the wax to form the outlines of the image, which are then filled in with more yarn, the strands of which are laid down parallel to each other. Full of vibrant colors and rich in symbolism, the yarn paintings are often intended to evoke the hallucinatory visions induced by peyote, an important sacrament for the Huichol.
In Dodge City Montes worked in the public school district as a maintenance person from 1977 to 1996. In 1990 Montes’s eldest daughter, a military nurse, was deployed to the Persian Gulf during the Gulf War. To alleviate his anxiety over fear for his daughter’s safety, Montes began making frames out of cardboard for the photographs she was sending home. This led Montes to develop his distinctive style and working methods. Using a razor blade, Montes cuts discarded cardboard he has salvaged into quarter inch strips, which he then uses as the basic building material for his elaborate and colorful constructions.
21 with Cube contains elements inspired by the visual language of Mexican arts and crafts, offering evidence of Montes’s Mexican heritage. Of particular interest is the tradition of yarn painting developed by the Huichol people of the western Sierra Madre. Yarn painting evolved out of the practice of making nierika, small devotional offerings. Huichol yarn paintings are made by inscribing a design on a wooden board covered with wax. Wool or acrylic yarn is pressed into the wax to form the outlines of the image, which are then filled in with more yarn, the strands of which are laid down parallel to each other. Full of vibrant colors and rich in symbolism, the yarn paintings are often intended to evoke the hallucinatory visions induced by peyote, an important sacrament for the Huichol.
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