Shantay Robinson
Willie Cole is an artist who is definitely ahead of his time. Before the world was concerned with fast fashion and the environmental crisis, his art was teaching us how to consider the health of the world and the people in it.
When I first encountered Willie Cole’s art at the High Museum in Atlanta, I was immediately enamored. I was intrigued by the forms he creates to make sculptures out of shoes. In addition to the form of his sculptures, he recognizes his culture and the richness of his heritage.
Cole has been known to repurpose shoes, water bottles, match sticks, bicycle parts, lawn jockeys, and discarded appliances. He calls himself a “Perceptual Engineer,” as he uses what he finds to alter the perception of it; the items he uses are not entirely changed but the way we look at them is.
The Worrier (2014)
His most famous sculpture The Worrier is completely shaped with shoes and actually resembles a figure sitting with his own thoughts. I was instantly intrigued by the ingenuity and originality of this work. The Worrier succeeds The Thinker, created by one of art’s most celebrated artists, Auguste Rodin.
Though Cole’s sculpture acknowledges the work of a great master like Rodin, his work is not based in European culture but stringently based in African and African American culture. Cole certainly understands the history of Western art, but he turns the thing on its head.
The sculptures of shoes that Cole created solely rely on shapes. His sculptures made of repurposed shoes, at times, resemble African masks. He doesn’t add any other information to the sculpture, but the placement and what is already present on the shoes fuels his imagination.
Man, Spirit, and Mask (1999)
Cole’s work with ironing boards and iron markings harken back to a time when a multitude of African American women were relegated to domestic service. So, the iron markings from irons that Black women used to launder clothes, now become a source of power.
Sometimes he shaped the iron markings to look like African masks that might have been used in tribal ceremonies or battle. The women who used the iron were in a battle for their lives and his work tells their stories.
The Black women who were domestics did the work not because that was all they could do, but because that’s all that was available for them to do. They were warriors in domestic service battling for the livelihoods of themselves and their families.
Cole’s repurposing of everyday items comes from a long history of Black people altering or recycling what they had to make greater use of items, including food and clothes. From discarded food, Black people turned scraps into delicacies and turned used clothes into elaborate quilts.
From Water to Light (2013)
Though Cole’s use of discarded items could simply look like an artist using what he can to make art, he is genuinely interested in the environment. He says, "We have a water bottle crisis and a water crisis in general.” His use of 6,000 plastic bottles to create a chandelier not only creates beautiful art, but it recycles an item that most people discard without thinking.
“Plastic is killing the environment, and lead pipes have impacted big cities around the country, including in Newark. Making a public structure draws attention and makes people ask questions, which can lead to conversation and potential solutions," he tells Express Newark.
Picker (2022)
Cole’s recent works involve recycling musical instruments that were acquired in partnership with Yamaha’s upcycling program, which donates instruments that don’t pass their final inspection. These instruments are cut and shaped into beautiful forms.
Willie Cole
Willie Cole was born in and continues to work in New Jersey. He was a young student at Newark Museum and Arts High School of Newark. He received a bachelor’s degree from School of Visual Arts in New York in 1976 and continued his studies at Art Students League of New York from 1976 to 1979.