Memorial Ring c. 1937

This "Memorial Ring" by Michael Fenga, who lived an impressively long life, is done on paper with what looks like graphite and colored pencil. You can tell Fenga wasn’t trying to trick you into thinking this *is* a ring - he’s showing you how it’s made, like a diagram for a very special object. The colors are muted, but somehow the gold still shines, doesn’t it? The little portrait in the center is so precise. The overall effect is tender but also slightly unsettling. What does it mean to keep someone so close, but also so far away, captured in a tiny frame? It reminds me of the work of Joseph Cornell, who was obsessed with collecting fragments of memory. Like Cornell, Fenga seems to be saying that a work of art is like a container; in this case, for something so precious it can never be held.