Wrought Iron Lock 1936

Curator: The mood is immediately somber, isn't it? The muted watercolor palette lends a certain gravitas to what is, after all, a common object. Editor: Indeed. I’m looking at J. Howard Iams' "Wrought Iron Lock," dating from 1936, rendered in watercolor and drawing. It is really the geometric relationships that catch my eye; the layering of rectangular forms and how the details punctuate the planes. Curator: A lock. Historically, locks signify security, certainly. Protection against threats, perceived or real. But it also speaks to exclusion and barriers erected against others, even things feared. Editor: The work employs realism to invite a specific understanding. See how Iams directs the eye to engage with its function, offering a structural explanation almost as if rendering a blueprint. We have two perspectives, the assembled view and an exploded view that reveals inner mechanisms. Curator: It is like peering inside the mind, actually, revealing the clockwork machinery that dictates behavior. The 'Wrought Iron Lock' becomes symbolic of mental constructs that restrict personal liberties, echoing the growing political tensions of the era in which it was made. Editor: But what is also striking to me is the texture of the watercolor on the surface of the work. The delicate rendering creates an image of the object that simultaneously communicates solidity and also incredible vulnerability. It doesn’t have the imperviousness we would normally attribute to metal. Curator: That's true! Perhaps Iams sought to comment on the fallacy of security in a world descending into war. A lock is, ultimately, breakable, circumvented, or simply rendered obsolete, no matter how formidable. The illusion of control is ultimately transient. Editor: So much revealed in something we typically don’t notice; the architecture, and the metaphor it creates. Curator: Indeed, it encourages reflection on the psychological weight objects can carry, whispering untold stories about who we are as human beings.