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City Flora Series
Jan Yager’s City Flora/City Flotsam series examines the urban landscape outside her studio in North Philadelphia. Beginning in 1990, Yager began to “beachcomb” the sidewalks returning with bullet casings, crack vials, and shattered auto glass from which she made conceptual jewelry. This Dandelion brooch, sets a fragment of auto glass like a gem at its center to represent the persistence of life in a decaying city environment. The brooch re-creates the dandelion, an unwelcome plant in formal gardens but a common, even charming presence in ordinary cityscapes. As an antidote to this disturbing evidence of poverty, violence, and drug abuse, Yager saw the resilient weeds as symbols of renewal and rebirth.
Dandelion brooch
City Flora Series
Jan Yager (American, born in 1951)
American
2001
Medium/Technique
Silver, found auto glass.
Dimensions
Overall: 14 x 14.6 x 1.9 cm, 90.6 gm (5 1/2 x 5 3/4 x 3/4 in., 0.2 lb.)
Credit Line
The Daphne Farago Collection
Accession Number2006.634
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsJewelry, Contemporary Art, Americas
ClassificationsJewelry / Adornment – Brooches
Jan Yager’s City Flora/City Flotsam series examines the urban landscape outside her studio in North Philadelphia. Beginning in 1990, Yager began to “beachcomb” the sidewalks returning with bullet casings, crack vials, and shattered auto glass from which she made conceptual jewelry. This Dandelion brooch, sets a fragment of auto glass like a gem at its center to represent the persistence of life in a decaying city environment. The brooch re-creates the dandelion, an unwelcome plant in formal gardens but a common, even charming presence in ordinary cityscapes. As an antidote to this disturbing evidence of poverty, violence, and drug abuse, Yager saw the resilient weeds as symbols of renewal and rebirth.
DescriptionSilver cast dandelion leaves with diamond-shaped green auto glass in center. The leaves are set in three articulated layers, and each layer rotates around a center point.
Marks
"Dandelion City Flora/City Flotsam" incised on the back of one leaf; "Jan Yager sterling auto glass" incised on the back of another leaf.
ProvenanceJan Yager; Daphne Farago, October 22, 2001 Daphne Farago; to MFA, 2006, gift of Daphne Farago.
Copyright© Jan Yager