Lost+Soul,+Found+Spirit

Date: 1996
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/1996/1996.61_2a.jpg&max=460 width="271" height="253" link="@http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=35298"]] || Title: **Lost Soul, Found Spirit**

Artist: **Robert Ebendorf** Born: Topeka, Kansas 1938

Medium: mixed media: paint on metal, pearls, squirrel's foot, glass, crab claws, metal and wood crucifixes, metal fountain pen tip, chicken's foot, metal, ink on paper under plexi in metal, on a metal chain Dimensions: 13 x 12 x 1 1/4 in. (33.0 x 30.5 x 3.3 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the artist in memory of Mr. Ronald H. Pearson

Accession: 1996.61 || Robert Ebendorf created a series of disturbing pieces with this title following a painful divorce. The chicken's foot, squirrel's paw, and numerous claws represent the loss of hands, which are a jeweler's means of creating. With these symbols, Ebendorf expressed his own sense of loss in his personal life. The act of creating the pieces, however, was a kind of salvation for the artist. He acknowledged this by including in this piece a crucifix, an image of Jesus and rosary beads, to suggest suffering and redemption.
 * Luce Center Label: **

The Jewelry of Robert Ebendorf: A Retrospective of Forty Years Review of "The Life and Times of Robert W. Ebendorf: Jeweler and Metalsmith"
 * Resources: **

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page
 * Links: **