Artwork copyright Ken Spiering. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Alphabet of a Sympathetic Dialect, 2000

Ken Spiering
American (born 1950)

Location: Artz-Fox Elementary School, Mabton

About the Artwork

Artist Ken Spiering created Alphabet of a Sympathetic Dialect as a sequence of twenty six photographs. Each close-up image of farm machinery suggests a letter in the alphabet. The black and white photographs were printed using a color process. This process created tones of green, violet and sepia in the images. The artist notes, "The collection as a whole hints at being a statement in color. The photographs were taken at a time that was very new for me creatively, a time looking for something I could not define, but that I knew I must set about to discover."

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Mabton School District.

About the Artist

Eastern Washington-based artist Ken Spiering creates artworks in many different media, including drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Many of his works have been created for public spaces, with a focus on natural imagery rich with metaphor.