A Mini Wandering

Each work, always displayed carefully in a casement or container of Cornell’s making, feels crafted and cared for. This is a person who took great joy in the small and the delicate and who, as children do, found treasures everywhere he looked. The value of those treasures is held in the story they tell, not their monetary worth.

The feel of an object, it’s tactility if you like, is also part of the treasure. Cornell displays scrolls of tiny text, bundled up into a box as if they were archived. Only by taking them out do you discover their true nature - boxes in camouflage hiding their bounty within.

A traveller’s box instructs you to “KEEP FLAT” when really you need to turn it on it’s head, shake out each of the compasses neatly stored within and see what is unearthed beneath.

Similarly, the netsuke were to be held within the hand so that the full depths of their identity can only be revealed when the visual connects to the tangible. You must feel the path of the craftsman’s tool to understand his story. Both artist and collector, Cornell demonstrates the connection between maker and object; story and reality.