Lucky, Lucky, Lucky 2010

Since his first explorations with glass in 1983, Whiten has produced a considerable body of work using this material, drawn to its ability to assume various shapes, colours, and states and its capacity to transmit light. Lucky, Lucky, Lucky resembles a child’s rocking horse and is part of a series of life-size objects cast in glass that recall children’s toys, including the glass tricycle in After Ethan’s Wheels, 2010, and the glass sleigh in Travel Stik, 2012. In these works, the artist underscores the power of play to transport us to other realms by engaging our imagination.

Whiten cites “The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence as his inspiration for Lucky, Lucky, Lucky. In this 1926 short story, a prescient child named Paul with uncanny blue eyes of “cold fire” was able to predict racehorse winners, gaining insight by riding a wooden rocking horse. Rocking is an archetypal motion: the rocking of a cradle or a chair—back and forth, active and passive, in and out—rephrases the gestures of breathing and of ritual. In Lawrence’s tale, the rocking motion of the toy horse allows the child to enter another dimension where he can forecast which horses will win races, securing prize money to support his mother’s social ambitions. Through these repetitive rhythmic movements, he himself is transformed. Eventually, he succumbs to exhaustion while riding the rocking horse, falling victim to the pursuit of wealth.

Lucky, Lucky, Lucky is resonant with symbolism. Epitomizing swift passage, the horse is often conceived as the bodily vehicle while the rider is the spirit; in other traditions, these roles are reversed. Whiten’s rocking horse is constructed from blue glass, a colour associated with truth, intellect, and revelation. Here, the blue glass recalls the child’s eyes and the act of seeing. Glass, itself, is a vehicle of transmission, allowing light to pass through. Transformed by fire, it is a material capable of assuming various states. Whiten’s blue glass rocking horse divests this “toy” of its practical application and bestows upon it a sense of magic—in this context, Paul’s powers of divination. As a symbol, the child is an embodiment of potentiality as well as innocence. He also points to the transformation of the individual, reborn into perfection.  As the artist comments, “Children who can imagine are the key to consciousness.”