Read an essay on Thornton Dial’s creative process.

Why do artists use what others might discard? Sometimes the impetus is economics or convenience: this is just what was available to them at the time. But it’s often not so simple. Perhaps the material points to a deeper meaning, perhaps the artist was following a particular material fascination as Frank Gehry did in his experimentations with cardboard furniture, or perhaps it was just what was there in front of them, as was the case in Thorton Dial’s monumental History Refused to Die. Among the many reasons great art endures is the fact that we might never know and are invited to wonder.

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