The Repository

Artists

• Marjorie Dial

Statement

Marjorie Dial

The Repository brings together a poem comprised of five large vessels and a collection of recent fragment poems. Influenced by archaic storage and transport containers, and the traditions of Carolina pottery, the vessels hold meaning from a closely-held interior space and suspend it for access and contemplation. The Repository is a storehouse of desire, reason, and hope—the works both a preservation and a transmission.

Composed of five vessels that have been incised with text, Hello My Love is a meditation on the loss of intimacy––the absence of conversation, confessions, contact––that was a collective experience during the pandemic. The poem arose from an urgency to say what needs to be said, to take care of affairs, to reconcile. After fires set the Pacific Northwest ablaze, the air turned orange and smoke engulfed us. This led to experiments with glaze made from ash from local fire pits. The resulting iridescent, amber surface makes the pieces appear as individual flames.

The fragment poems Thrum, Future Sex, From Time to Time, Quench, Still You and Surge are part of a larger work that is non-linear and on-going. Begun in 2022 as a sense of re-emergence took hold, these vessels preserve knowledge that is vital and necessary.