Mary Poole Driver, Assistant Manager of Visitor Experiences at the Nasher Sculpture Center, brings a unique perspective to the Hugh Hayden: Homecoming, shaped by her deep Dallas roots and extensive background in the arts. Originally from Oak Cliff, Mary earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and has dedicated the past seven years to enriching visitor experiences at the Nasher. Known for her dynamic tours and keen ability to make art relatable, she shares her passion with every visitor—whether they are seasoned art enthusiasts or newcomers.
Homecoming resonates deeply with Mary due to its themes of nostalgia and identity. Hayden, who also grew up in Dallas, constructs sculptures that blend the ordinary with the surreal, using his mastery of wood carving and unconventional materials to evoke both familiarity and dissonance. Mary considers how her upbringing in Dallas enhances her appreciation of Hayden’s work, particularly his use of common places and objects, like playgrounds, kitchen furniture, and sports gear, to explore complex ideas of belonging and resilience.
Among the pieces in Homecoming, works such as Brush, a rendition of a wooden playground covered in boar hair bristles, stand out for their intricate play between childhood innocence and discomfort. Hayden’s art challenges viewers to reconsider the simplicity of their memories and confront the hidden difficulties of those formative years.
Mary encourages visitors to engage with the layered meanings within Homecoming, creating an experience that connects the artwork to everyone's personal memories and perceptions of identity.
On opposing walls within the gallery, two works within the exhibition allude to queerness: Made in Heaven and Force Field. Mary dissects the material and composition of each work to investigate underlying messages about intimacy, gender, and political and racial history.
One artwork titled Heaven depicts featuring an Adirondack chair surrounded and pierced by tree branches. Mary notes how the branches create a sense of obstruction, transforming the chair from comfortable into unnerving. “It made my skin tickle,” she shares, capturing the discomfort the piece instills. The chair is strategically placed at the back of the gallery facing the Nasher’s sculpture garden. “You're forced to stand to move around it, making it impossible to relax and enjoy the splendor of the garden behind it.” Mary points out. She interprets this deliberate inaccessibility as a metaphor for aspirations that are often within sight but out of reach.
To wrap up our interview with Mary, she shares her thoughts on Cutting Board, a cafeteria table meticulously covered in hand-carved pencils. The sculpture sits between two large mirrors, creating an illusion of endless space. With sharp pencils serving as a barrier that prevents viewers from approaching, the striking arrangement may evoke a nuanced, and potentially unwelcoming, memory of shared spaces like school cafeterias.
For Mary, Cutting Board confronts ideas of community and exclusion, with the pencils transforming the familiar table from a place of gathering into a hostile and anxiety-inducing object. Positioned between the mirrors, the table’s inaccessibility is magnified, suggesting that feelings of alienation are both immediate and infinite.
From the nostalgia of playgrounds built by communities to the guarded inaccessibility of everyday objects, Hayden’s work captures the tension between familiarity and exclusion. Mary’s Dallas roots and art museum background bring an intimate understanding to these themes, enabling visitors to connect with the art on both personal and communal levels. Her ability to draw out the layered emotions in Hayden’s sculptures turns a visit to Homecoming into a journey of reflection and an invitation for visitors to confront their own narratives of comfort, identity, and belonging.