String Bowl c. 1941

Editor: This is Paul Poffinbarger's "String Bowl," created around 1941, a delicate pencil drawing. There's something both fragile and a little melancholy about it, a sense of quiet containment. What do you see in this piece? Curator: I'm immediately drawn to the bell jar itself, a potent symbol of preservation and often, the opposite: decay. What is being protected here? Is it the simple ball of yarn, representing domesticity, comfort, the act of creation itself? Or is the jar isolating it, making it a specimen, a relic? Editor: I hadn't thought of it that way, more like keeping something safe. Is it the single strand leading up and out through the top relevant? Curator: Precisely! That escaping strand breaks the containment, suggesting the yarn’s potential, its lifeline. Consider, too, the period this was made – around 1941, the world at war. The simple act of knitting, represented by the yarn, could become a powerful symbol of home, of hope, amidst global upheaval. Do you think it may carry those hopes with it? Editor: I see what you mean. Knitting as hope— I really didn't connect those two before. Maybe that explains some of that quiet sadness that I picked up on too, since, like you pointed out, war times. Curator: And what about the roundness? Circles are ancient symbols of totality, wholeness, the eternal. Poffinbarger is not simply drawing a still life; he's evoking deeper layers of meaning. Editor: I hadn’t considered the symbolic implications of such everyday objects. I will certainly look at still lifes differently now! Curator: The mundane, elevated— that’s often where we find the most resonant symbols of all.