She Still Dreams of Flying

Work on Paper

-

DePaul Art Museum

Name/Title

She Still Dreams of Flying

Entry/Object ID

2021.09

Description

Tree trunks with ivy crawling up the sides and across the ground. A dress hangs off a branch of the second tree.

Artwork Details

Medium

Vitreograph

Context

She Still Dreams of Flying is a unique vitreograph or print made using a glass matrix. The uncommon technique was developed in the 1970s by Harvey Littleton, a glass artist and professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, who soon retired to North Carolina in 1976. Thanks to a National Endowment for the Arts grant that paired painters with master printmakers in an effort to better explore the new medium of vitreography, Sigler was able to produce five prints in 1985. This particular print is emblematic of Sigler’s mature style with its bare landscape populated only by the dress of the titular woman and the title written across the top of the image. Likely an early reflection on the artist’s recent medical diagnosis, She Still Dreams of Flying presents a potentially hopeful outlook on the future despite the dark and sparse scene depicted.

Acquisition

Accession

2021.06-13

Source or Donor

Dick Hamilton, Jan Hamilton

Acquisition Method

Gift

Credit Line

Gift of Dick and Jan Hamilton

Made/Created

Artist

Sigler, Hollis

Date made

1985

Lexicon

Nomenclature 4.0

Nomenclature Class

Art

Nomenclature Category

Category 08: Communication Objects

LOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

Birch trees, Clothing & dress, Nature

Dimensions

Height

20-1/2 in

Width

21 in

Exhibition

Life Cycles

Interpretative Labels

Label

Hollis Sigler (1948–2001) She Still Dreams of Flying, 1985 Vitreograph Collection of DePaul Art Museum, gift of Dick and Jan Hamilton, 2021.09 During the 1970s and 1980s, Hollis Sigler followed a visually whimsical approach to womanhood, domesticity, and queerness. Sigler’s sparse natural environments are often haunted by a singular anonymous character she called “the lady,” who intimately, yet generically represents the experience of women. She Still Dreams of Flying, produced the same year Sigler was diagnosed with breast cancer, depicts a deserted child-like dress carefully hung in desolate woods suggesting that the artist’s dreams remain alive despite changes to the physical body. Hollis Sigler (1948–2001) Ella sueña aún con volar, 1985 Vitreografía Colección del Museo de Arte DePaul, donada por Dick y Jan Hamilton, 2021.09 Durante las décadas de 1970 y 1980, Hollis Sigler siguió un enfoque visualmente fantástico de la feminidad, la domesticidad y la homosexualidad (queerness). Los escasos ambientes naturales de Sigler suelen estar frecuentados por un único personaje anónimo al que llama “la dama”, quien de manera íntima, si bien genérica, representa la experiencia de la mujer. Ella sueña aún con volar, producida el mismo año en que se le diagnosticó cáncer de mama a Sigler, representa un vestido infantil abandonado que se colgó con atención en un bosque inhóspito, lo que sugiere que los sueños de la artista siguen vivos a pesar de los cambios en el cuerpo físico.