Career
Her husband, the writer Walter Abish, wrote The Shape of Absence in 1990, based on her work. Foreign many years, Abish’s primary focus was sculpture installations. She frequently combined manufactured materials, such as particle board, and multitudes of marbles.
Her work How 4 into 4 into 3 (1975) consists of homasote, marbles, and baking soda.
This homosote is placed upright alongside the interior walls of a room, while the floor is covered with marbles. The marbles are separated next to the homosote, creating a shadow-like effect as if the marbles were light.
This is reflected by the title of the work. In one corner, four particle boards create four shadows, in the opposite corner only three shadows are visible from the four particle boards.
Abish believes in a synergy between the work and the working surface.
In her view, sculpture has a significant impact on the world around it: “The thousands of marbles add a hard but penetrable surface to the surface…this new surface is an omnidirectional translucent flowing surface.” Abish further explains the harmony that a surface has with a completed sculpture after the two are one: “Everywhere surfaces await the coming of sculpting.”
This idea is explored further in Near Where I live (1976), where several boards are laid on the ground, with thousands of marbles on the bare space between the boards. The boards have incisions on them in such a way that creates a channel across each board. Gaps in the marbles continue the route.
The result, as reviewer Barbera Cavaliere exclaims, “suggests a continuum within the structure… a sweeping arabesque motion only partially present in the incised arcs, enhancing the lyrical flow felt also in the scattered shiny marbles.”.