Cure
  • review

decorative header image from Volume III Issue 2 · Spring 2017
“Cure” detail of skull. Carved and polished roadkill deer bones, 24 karat gold leaf, by Lee Emma Running, 2016. Photo by Daniel Strong.

“Cure” detail of skull. Carved and polished roadkill deer bones, 24 karat gold leaf, by Lee Emma Running, 2016. Photo by Daniel Strong.

Running says: “My inspiration is time spent walking in Iowa’s wild places. On these walks I notice common materials and complex patterns. I look for pattern networks that recur at different scales, a common web of leaf veins mirrors a web of bone marrow, or the fingers of Iowa’s river systems on a map. Inscribing these universal patterns onto various materials has shaped my thinking about our human relationship within the ecosystem.”

'Cure' detail of Ribs. Carved and polished roadkill deer bones, 24 karat gold leaf, by Lee Emma Running, 2016. Photo by Daniel Strong.

‘Cure’ detail of Ribs. Carved and polished roadkill deer bones, 24 karat gold leaf, by Lee Emma Running, 2016. Photo by Daniel Strong.

When asked about her recent project, “Cure,” she says: “My home in Central Iowa is 6 miles from Interstate 80. Here the deer herd numbers 400,000. They were nearly hunted to extinction in 1900. Now, with no natural predators the animals feed and shelter in endless rows of feed corn. In my agricultural state they are both vermin and trophy.

'Cure' detail of Vertebrae. Carved and polished roadkill deer bones, 24 karat gold leaf, by Lee Emma Running, 2016. Photo by Daniel Strong.

‘Cure’ detail of Vertebrae. Carved and polished roadkill deer bones, 24 karat gold leaf, by Lee Emma Running, 2016. Photo by Daniel Strong.

“Year round, the highways are littered with road kill. In the early spring I walk creek beds and ditches to retrieve their bones washed away and cleaned by vultures and insects. The incomplete nature of these skeletons carry evidence of the automobiles that struck them and the gnawed marks of the scavengers they sustained.

'Cure' detail of Foreleg. Carved and polished roadkill deer bones, 24 karat gold leaf, by Lee Emma Running, 2016. Photo by Daniel Strong.

‘Cure’ detail of Foreleg. Carved and polished roadkill deer bones, 24 karat gold leaf, by Lee Emma Running, 2016. Photo by Daniel Strong.

“I polish the bones to a porcelain shine and then engrave an image of a lacy network onto their surface. With a jeweler’s tool, I carve the bones and remove the marrow from their core. Once the bones are hollow and clean I gild the internal chamber with 24 karat gold. I am building a precious relic of something silent and wild that lives and dies by our agriculture, our economies, and our speed.” Rootstalk leaf-bug icon marking the end of the article's text.

To link to a video presentation by the artist concerning “Cure,” click the image above. Photo by Barry Phipps.

To link to a video presentation by the artist concerning “Cure,” click the image above. Photo by Barry Phipps.

“Cure” detail of pelvis and leg bones. Carved and polished roadkill deer bones, 24 karat gold leaf, by Lee Emma Running, 2016. Photo by Daniel Strong.

“Cure” detail of pelvis and leg bones. Carved and polished roadkill deer bones, 24 karat gold leaf, by Lee Emma Running, 2016. Photo by Daniel Strong.

About Author Lee Emma Running
Portrait image of author Lee Emma Running.
Photo by Barry Phipps
Lee Emma Running is an Associate Professor at Grinnell College. She received her MFA from the University of Iowa in 2005, and has been teaching sculpture and drawing at the College since then. Running has received residency fellowships from the Santa Fe Art Institute, (2015) Penland School of Crafts (2016); Constellation Studios, (2016) and the Jentel Foundation (2017) in support of her recent work. She has exhibited her work at Concordia University, Western Carolina University Fine Arts Museum, The Des Moines Art Center, the Charlotte Street Foundation (Kansas City, MO) Tacoma Contemporary, and Pyramid Atlantic Gallery, (Washington DC) She is represented by Olson Larsen Gallery, in Des Moines, IA.