Marriage Ring

Jerome Thompson

Soon after the Fountain of the Four Seasons was installed at Memorial Union, Petersen was asked to design a similar monument that would mark the opposite end of the main campus. To be placed on the lawn in front of the Home Economics building (now MacKay Hall), his theme was marriage and children, the main course of study for most of the women who attended Iowa State. During his tenure on the faculty, Petersen was part of this college, teaching in the Applied Art department. When he first started his art classes, only women were allowed to attend because only women were allowed in Home Economics college classes. Gradually, however, the popularity of his teaching and the usefulness of his classes, especially for architecture students, forced a change in the attendance policy.

His sculpture was a shallow circular pool ringed by a low concrete wall which was ornamented by three small terra cotta children, playing at the edge of the water. The two boys and one girl were intended to represent the “jewels” of the marriage relationship.

Originally, water from a small fountain trickled through the hands of the girl before it flowed into the pool. As in the Dairy Industry building, Roberts Hall and the Memorial Union, Petersen was not content to fashion simply a self-contained sculpture, but instead developed an entire complex, in a way that may relate to today’s site-specific art. He often designed the entire space and landscape surrounding his work, hoping to position it in an ideal setting. Unfortunately, some of his original designs have been altered over the years. This sculpture in particular has undergone misfortunes. The heads were knocked off on several occasions and, at one point, seemed to be lost completely (they eventually reappeared), water is no longer regularly integrated into the work and the plantings have gone through numerous incarnations. Finally, the original terra cotta children were taken for their protection into the lobby of MacKay Hall, home of the department of Human Development, which replaced the old college of Home Economics. In their place at the side of the pool were substituted concrete castings.

Along the top of the pool wall is an inscription supplied by Petersen’s wife, Charlotte, who was an avid reader of poetry and children’s literature. She adapted a line by James Whitcomb Riley, a popular American poet of the mid-20th century, from his poem “The Hired Man’s Faith in Children:” “I believe all children’s good, if they’re only understood, even bad ones, seems to me‘s jest as good as they can be.”

Adapted from: Lea Rosson DeLong Christian Petersen’s Midwest”, 2004.

When I was in fourth grade my father was considering a teaching assignment for several years in Uruguay. He planned on taking the family and he wanted me to learn Spanish. There was a summer school class in Ames and I was enrolled. But with few students enrolled, the class was cancelled. My dad located the wife of one of his graduate students who agreed to be my tutor. The couple lived in an area of Pammel Court north of the Armory. I would peddle my bike through campus to get to my lesson. Afterward, in the late morning I would pedal home. This little pool in the south lawn of McKay Hall was a pleasant place to stop and take a break. Just like at the Dairy Industry Building, if the campus was quiet and no one was around, off came my shoes and I cooled my feet. The sculpted turtle and frogs that inhabited the pool’s sculpture looked almost real.

-Jerome Thompson

the jewels

by Michael Carey

inspired by Marriage Ring by Christian Petersen

Water, they say,

we are mostly,

water and air

surrounded by

a few ounces

of minerals:

calcium, phosphorus,

potassium, salt,

the tiniest amount

of iron and zinc and copper.

Oh, but what

a fine mixture!

See these children

sitting and lying in the sun

by the low tangle of green bushes.

Such tender lumps of clay!

Such beautiful bags of water!

Bright jewels

on the wedding ring

of their parents!

staring at themselves

in the lily, in the turtle,

the frog and the surface

of the bubbling stream.

See the soft curves

on the gentle girl

and her two

plump brothers.

Nothing but skin and love

and a quiet curiosity

between their souls

and the heavens,

their hearts

and the sky and

the maze of students

walking by –

their busy brains

already reeling

about the tedious

contours of their

next day’s assignment.