Strength to Love

Name/Title

Strength to Love

Entry/Object ID

2021.16

Description

Rhinestone-studded metal spirit stick

Artwork Details

Medium

rhinestones and adhesive on glass in velvet, wood and glass case

Context

In 2013, Chicago-based artist Cheryl Pope opened her solo exhibition Just Yell at Monique Meloche Gallery, which used American high school aesthetics, such as yearbooks, Varsity patches, and car culture, as a framework to forefront the issues of gun violence throughout the city and country. Collaborating with 400 teenagers throughout Chicago, Pope dug into the history of cheerleaders (previously called “Yellers”) and used the idea of yelling as a way of making the invisible visible and give voice to families directly involved in these neighborhood tragedies, not as a solution, but as a way to confront these realities head-on for both the participants and a visual arts audience. In Strength to Love, Pope uses the idea of the spirit stick, used in cheerleading to award the person or team for having the highest team spirit, or to those whose hard work is evident. This rhinestone-studded metal version, encased in its specially-made glass case is reminiscent, however, of a fire emergency case.

Acquisition

Accession

2021.16

Source or Donor

Deone Jackman Family Estate

Acquisition Method

Gift

Credit Line

Gift of the Deone Jackman Family Estate

Made/Created

Artist

Pope, Cheryl

Date made

2013

Lexicon

Nomenclature 4.0

Nomenclature Class

Art

Nomenclature Category

Category 08: Communication Objects

LOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

Cheerleaders

Dimensions

Height

9 in

Width

24 in

Depth

3-1/4 in