{"object":[{"sourceId":{"label":"Source ID","value":"2756"},"altNumsArchivespace":{"label":"ArchiveSpace","value":"2013.1"},"copyright":{"label":"Copyright","value":"Copyright for this work is under review."},"creditline":{"label":"Credit Line","value":"Gift of the artist"},"endDate":{"label":"End Date","value":"1992"},"sortNumber":{"label":"Sort Number","value":"2000    13    1"},"invno":{"label":"Accession number","value":"2000.13.1"},"medium":{"label":"Medium","value":"Wood, cement, buttons, bottle caps, and nails"},"geographyPlaceregion":{"label":"Place/Region","value":"Chicago"},"media":{"label":"Media","value":{"mediaURL":"https://collection.folkartmuseum.org/internal/media/dispatcher/2819/full","mediaDepartment":"Object Photographs","mediaType":"Image","mediaId":"2819"}},"title":{"label":"Title","value":"Button Tree"},"geographyCity":{"value":"Chicago"},"textEntriesWebsitedisplaytext":{"value":["Sculpture and Three Dimensional Objects","Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org","This magnificent sculpture and the man who fashioned it are linked by a sense of the miraculous. Both received a second life after near-death experiences, and each has reflected joy and vitality back into the world, the Button Tree through its vibrant presence, and the artist, Gregory Warmack, through the gift of such creations. In 1978 Warmack almost died after being shot in an attempted robbery. He lapsed into a coma and experienced visions of ancestral worlds: \u201cIt was all very peaceful, almost as if I was traveling through history and looking at ancient civilizations.\u201d When he recovered, it was with a new sense of mission and a new identity as Mr. Imagination. Warmack devoted the rest of his life to artmaking using recycled and reclaimed materials, often the detritus of his landscape. For this work, he salvaged part of a strong tree that had been heedlessly uprooted for an urban renewal project. He invested years, slowly activating the life and spirit of the tree by nailing shiny buttons into the wood. The tree pulses with its festoons of plastic, metal, and glass buttons that flash in the light along animated tendrils made of wire.","Chicago artist Gregory Warmack, also known as Mr. Imagination, had boundless energy and continually turned his artistic powers into acts of goodwill intended to contribute to societal change. Warmack believed that his art objects\u2014from monumental public art grottoes that can now be found across the nation to small, accessible bottle-cap and button tokens\u2014were gifts. And in many ways, his art was inspired by a gift\u2014the gift of life.Although Warmack had always made art objects, it was only after he was shot in the stomach, in 1978, in an attempted robbery, that he made a conscious choice to become an artist. After the shooting, Warmack fell into a coma, and during this time he had visions of ancestral worlds and other civilizations. It was out of this trauma that Mr. Imagination was born, and there followed an explosion of creativity. Warmack began to work in earnest and on a large scale. He used any materials he could find, constructing totemic figures and mythological animals covered with bottle caps, buttons, and coins. Recycled pieces of furniture covered in bottle caps became regal figures and accessories such as thrones and footrests. He also worked in industrial sandstone, plaster, and wood. And he attended art openings and events wearing a homemade suit encrusted with bottle caps. Masks, canes, and staffs were forms the artist returned to again and again. All these objects Warmack attributed to a past he claimed to have visited as he struggled for his life.The understructure of Button Tree is the limb of an old tree that the artist rescued from the streets and set in a base festooned with bottle caps. Dismayed that the tree had been the victim of development, he resolved to \u201csave part of it.\u201d Warmack worked on the piece a little at a time, nailing buttons onto the wood one by one in a laborious process that took years to complete.Wire strands of buttons radiate from the branch, creating a lively, jubilant presence. The animated surface, with its tangling tendrils, becomes almost like dreadlocks springing forth from the head of a majestic man. By rescuing a dead tree limb and transforming it into a jaunty work of art, this northern urban artist also reclaimed the Southern rural root tradition practiced by Bessie Harvey and Lonnie Holley. And because each button is nailed to the tree, one cannot help but think of the Central African nkisi tradition of covering the surface of wooden sculptures with hundreds of nails, each representing a prayer, pounded in by a village full of believers. While the result may be different, the act is the same. Warmack created an American nkisi, willing the dead tree to linger in life still, now as a work of art. Brooke Davis Anderson, \"Button Tree,\" in Stacy C. Hollander, American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 402.Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org"]},"collections":{"label":"Collections","value":"Three Dimensional Works"},"geography":{"label":"Geography","value":"Chicago"},"id":{"label":"Id","value":"154107"},"geographyState":{"value":"Illinois"},"geographyCountry":{"value":"United States"},"onview":{"label":"On View","value":"0"},"people":{"label":"Artist / Maker","value":{"displayOrder":"1","personRole":"Artist","personID":"440","content":"Gregory \"Mr. Imagination\" Warmack"}},"classifications":{"label":"Classification(s)","value":"Sculpture"},"textEntries":{"label":"Text Entries","value":["Sculpture and Three Dimensional Objects","Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org","This magnificent sculpture and the man who fashioned it are linked by a sense of the miraculous. Both received a second life after near-death experiences, and each has reflected joy and vitality back into the world, the Button Tree through its vibrant presence, and the artist, Gregory Warmack, through the gift of such creations. In 1978 Warmack almost died after being shot in an attempted robbery. He lapsed into a coma and experienced visions of ancestral worlds: \u201cIt was all very peaceful, almost as if I was traveling through history and looking at ancient civilizations.\u201d When he recovered, it was with a new sense of mission and a new identity as Mr. Imagination. Warmack devoted the rest of his life to artmaking using recycled and reclaimed materials, often the detritus of his landscape. For this work, he salvaged part of a strong tree that had been heedlessly uprooted for an urban renewal project. He invested years, slowly activating the life and spirit of the tree by nailing shiny buttons into the wood. The tree pulses with its festoons of plastic, metal, and glass buttons that flash in the light along animated tendrils made of wire.","Chicago artist Gregory Warmack, also known as Mr. Imagination, had boundless energy and continually turned his artistic powers into acts of goodwill intended to contribute to societal change. Warmack believed that his art objects\u2014from monumental public art grottoes that can now be found across the nation to small, accessible bottle-cap and button tokens\u2014were gifts. And in many ways, his art was inspired by a gift\u2014the gift of life.Although Warmack had always made art objects, it was only after he was shot in the stomach, in 1978, in an attempted robbery, that he made a conscious choice to become an artist. After the shooting, Warmack fell into a coma, and during this time he had visions of ancestral worlds and other civilizations. It was out of this trauma that Mr. Imagination was born, and there followed an explosion of creativity. Warmack began to work in earnest and on a large scale. He used any materials he could find, constructing totemic figures and mythological animals covered with bottle caps, buttons, and coins. Recycled pieces of furniture covered in bottle caps became regal figures and accessories such as thrones and footrests. He also worked in industrial sandstone, plaster, and wood. And he attended art openings and events wearing a homemade suit encrusted with bottle caps. Masks, canes, and staffs were forms the artist returned to again and again. All these objects Warmack attributed to a past he claimed to have visited as he struggled for his life.The understructure of Button Tree is the limb of an old tree that the artist rescued from the streets and set in a base festooned with bottle caps. Dismayed that the tree had been the victim of development, he resolved to \u201csave part of it.\u201d Warmack worked on the piece a little at a time, nailing buttons onto the wood one by one in a laborious process that took years to complete.Wire strands of buttons radiate from the branch, creating a lively, jubilant presence. The animated surface, with its tangling tendrils, becomes almost like dreadlocks springing forth from the head of a majestic man. By rescuing a dead tree limb and transforming it into a jaunty work of art, this northern urban artist also reclaimed the Southern rural root tradition practiced by Bessie Harvey and Lonnie Holley. And because each button is nailed to the tree, one cannot help but think of the Central African nkisi tradition of covering the surface of wooden sculptures with hundreds of nails, each representing a prayer, pounded in by a village full of believers. While the result may be different, the act is the same. Warmack created an American nkisi, willing the dead tree to linger in life still, now as a work of art. Brooke Davis Anderson, \"Button Tree,\" in Stacy C. Hollander, American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 402.Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org"]},"beginDate":{"label":"Begin Date","value":"1990"},"displayDate":{"label":"Date","value":"1990\u20131992"},"exhibitions":{"label":"Exhibitions","value":[{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Thursday, July 11, 2002 - Sunday, January 5, 2003","exhibitionEndISODate":"2003-01-26","exhibitionID":"73","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2002-07-11","exhibitionBeginDate":"2002","exhibitionTitle":"American Anthem","exhibitionEndDate":"2003"},{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Thursday, September 13, 2012 - Sunday, January 13, 2013","exhibitionEndISODate":"2013-01-13","exhibitionID":"148","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2012-09-13","exhibitionBeginDate":"2012","exhibitionTitle":"Ooh, Shiny!","exhibitionEndDate":"2013"},{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Monday, October 15, 2018 - Thursday, February 7, 2019","exhibitionEndISODate":"2019-02-07","exhibitionID":"227","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2018-10-15","exhibitionBeginDate":"2018","exhibitionTitle":"Roadside Attraction","exhibitionEndDate":"2019"},{"exhibitionDisplayDate":"Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - Sunday, September 5, 2010","exhibitionEndISODate":"2010-09-05","exhibitionID":"147","exhibitionISOBeginDate":"2009-10-06","exhibitionBeginDate":"2009","exhibitionTitle":"Approaching Abstraction","exhibitionEndDate":"2010"}]},"altNums":{"label":"Alternative Numbers","value":"2013.1"},"dimensions":{"label":"Dimensions","value":"56 x 34 x 60 \" (142.2 x 86.4 x 152.4 cm)"}}]}