Glove Cycle
- Location: Porter Square Subway Station, Cambridge, MA (1984)
- Client: Commissioned by Arts on the Line, Mass. Bay Transit Authority
- Size: 54 life-size glove pieces throughout station
- Material: Cast bronze on stainless steel
- Budget: $30,000
- Artist: Mags Harries
- Photo Credits: Cathy Chapman & Rich Howard
The Subway Cycle
The subway station is a daily ritual; a controlled pathway designed to move commuters as efficiently as possible. On this path there are places where the commuter pauses as on the escalator or the train platform. The positioning of the cast-bronze glove pieces echo the pattern and pauses of this ritual to make a sculptural narrative. The narrative begins at the subway’s token booth and ends on the train platform, a subway life cycle.
Artist illustration of the sculptural narrative
Going Underground
Placed mostly at hand level in places where commuters pause, the sculptures encourage visual and physical connection. The cycle brings commuters a sense of continuity as they go underground and return to the surface.
A Life Cycle
The abandoned gloves call to mind the gloves lost underneath winter snow and revealed again in spring appearing to have taken on a new life and history.
The separate glove events that occur throughout the station add up to a life cycle of the glove, a whimsical metaphor for the journey of life to death. In their odd and yet familiar scenes, the gloves reflect undercurrent aspects of the human life around them.