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pull. Marisol's greatest ally is the power of free association. A pair of hands suggests arms that do not exist; the imaginary arms, in turn, suggest a body.

Some critics have seen in Marisol's sculptures the work of a satirist, but whatever social comment may be inferred is almost always accidental. "I'm thinking only about art and shapes," says Marisol. "If there is social comment, it seems to come out by itself." A sculpture called The Generals, in which two officers, who vaguely resemble Napoleonic marshals, sit astride the same horse, did not start out as a poke at the military. Marisol, it seems, was doing a sculpture of a friend, using a barrel for the torso, when she realized that if she tipped the barrel sideways she could have the torso of a horse. Legs and head were added, and then the two generals in all their epauletted splendor.

Out of a Cocoon. A beam whose upper half had been partially cut away reminded Marisol of the Mona Lisa: as she examined the grain of the cutaway part, she thought she saw the famous smile. She painted in the face, guided by the grain, and added a pair of plaster hands around the middle of the beam. The result looks as if the Mona Lisa were about to emerge from some sort of wooden cocoon.

Marisol is quite solemn about her work, but somewhere in her mind is a sparkling reservoir of wit and an ability to phantasize [[fantasize]] that is as rich as a child's. Her art is that of the toymaker, whose creations are specifically designed to appeal to that part of the mind in which fantasy and reality seem identical. The only difference is that a toy can be outgrown; it seems doubtful that the same will be said out of the work of Marisol.

TIME, JUNE 7, 1963

BEN MARTIN
[[Image]] 
MONA & MARISOL
Out of the grain, a grin.