Bucket Hooks c. 1938

Curator: Up next we have “Bucket Hooks,” a watercolor and pencil drawing created around 1938 by Paul Poffinbarger. What do you make of it? Editor: My initial reaction is tactile. It's aged, weighty, perhaps a little crude in its construction. I find myself wondering about the hands that forged and used this hook. Curator: It’s fascinating how such a humble object can carry layers of symbolic meaning. A hook, at its most basic, represents connection—linking things together. Yet, considering the historical context of the late 1930s, I can’t help but ponder deeper interpretations. Does it speak to the connections, sometimes tenuous, between labor and survival during the Depression? Editor: It could certainly be read through the lens of the Depression. The choice of watercolor, with its relative accessibility as an artistic medium, speaks to resourcefulness and adaptation amidst scarcity. You're spot on—there’s an element of connecting daily struggles and tools for survival right there. The aesthetic choices and the representation of honest labor reflect this period. Curator: Precisely. There is a deeper visual grammar here too. Notice how Poffinbarger uses light and shadow to emphasize the hook’s texture—the rust, the imperfections. They are almost given dignity, elevated from simple utility to an emblem of perseverance. It almost suggests the marks left by laboring hands become a badge of honor, rather than simply signs of wear. Editor: Yes! The imperfections tell stories. I am thinking about the materiality. You are totally drawn to its historical context. To me, the focus on this one isolated object throws the focus back onto the individual worker, onto that intimate and very immediate relationship between body and tool, between effort and result. Curator: Perhaps we’re both onto something. This singular, straightforward hook offers complex layers that expose cultural memory around shared challenges and resilience. Editor: A reminder that value is built in things as basic as bucket hooks; to acknowledge its materials and the people who worked them. It might look humble, but a hook has all the symbolic meaning we care to see.