Catalog Entry from If These Walls Could Talk Exhibit, Neill-Cochran House 2020:

“There‘s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch, is a glazed lunchbox in porcelain made to look like hard plastic, on which I’ve copied Matthias Grünewald’s Crucifixion from his masterpiece, the Isenheim Altarpiece. Back in 1994 when my children were in elementary school, I packed endless lunchboxes. There are so few things you can put in one--has to be portable, not too messy, unrefrigerated, something a picky kid will eat in a hurry. So I modeled a lunchbox after a red Garfield one my son used to tote. It needed a superhero on the front; an image of my husband taking out the laundry first came to mind. Then he got bumped by an insistent image of the Crucifixion which I had internalized since childhood—Grünewald’s. Why this one, I do not know. Nourishment through surrender? Emptying the self? (since this lunchbox is empty) A portable feast? (since many altarpieces were portable) Inclusive communion vs. ‘bring your own lunch’? Or is it God who is hungry? After painting the scene on the lunchbox, a cliché floated into my head that named it: There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. Gads, how corny. Then I realized it might refer to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer termed ‘cheap grace,’ 38taking the freebie without the accompanying discipline and obedience. Years later, I was fortunate to see the Isenheim Altarpiece in Colmar, France. Its presence is unforgettable, and as my art historian friend reminds me, it had a profound effect on its original audience: horribly ill outcasts housed in a 16th-century hospital. These patients suffered from a disfiguring, deadly disease called St. Anthony’s fire, and were paraded before this Crucifixion to recall Christ’s misery on their behalf. It may be hard for some of us today, who are busy, well, and privileged, to be truly motivated by such suffering, or to connect it with love. This one-liner piece has a pivotal role in my body of work, and remains one that people most remember. For me, the enigma of gift and sacrifice is an ongoing concern. One last note about lunchboxes: kids invariably share their contents with one another; some even give away the whole thing.” (Artist’s note from 1996)