I’m just getting back from this morning’s Art Klatch at Cafe Presse, which was an introduction to San Antonio artist Dario Robleto. Robleto has a traveling show that’s coming to the Frye next month, but what’s cool is that he also created a new exhibition that will only be in Seattle, called Heaven Is Being a Memory to Others, based on the histories of Frye founders Charles and Emma—especially Emma. That show opens Saturday.

My first experience with Robleto’s work was earlier this year, when I saw the traveling group show Soundwaves: The Art of Sampling at the MCASD La Jolla. One piece in particular stuck with me. Seen here (click on Dario Robleto and then on the image of “Living With …”—sorry! I couldn’t grab an image), it’s a jar with humble little objects inside it, and it has two titles—one for the sculpture’s “A side,” and one for its “B side.” Here’s the double wall label (which Robleto refers to as liner notes):

Living with Death as Something Intimate and Natural, 2005/2006, oak tree twig carved from dissolved audio tape recording of the heartbeat of an unborn child and the last heartbeats of a loved one, dried flowers picked on foreign battlefields sent home by foot soldiers from various wars, thread and fabric from military uniforms from various wars, veteran’s old mason jar, mourning handkerchief, mourning dress fabric and thread, pigments, water extendable resin, willow, glass b/w The Artillery of Heaven, 2006, casts of excavated fired bullets and spent shell casings from various wars made with ground fulgurites (glass produced by lightning strikes when heat from blast melts surrounding sand), battlefield sand and soil from various wars, rust

It’s two sculptures but also a doubled single sculpture; its materials are combined, like the possessions of a couple in a household, but they have separate meanings. Since I saw it, I’ve been trying to think of what to compare it to, and the best I can come up with is sculptures or artworks that have double meanings, which isn’t quite the same thing. My mind runs all over the place when I think about it. I think I’m in love with the idea.