Raul de Lara’s Rustic “Soft Sculptures” Act as Portraits of Invisible Laborers

A straw broom leans against the wall, but something is amiss: its wooden handle forms a gentle, downward-sloping arc, as if pulled by gravity toward the floor. Another broom hangs from the wall, its stick twisted over a metal peg like an earring hook fashioned by a giant. Spades, snow shovels, pitchforks, and mops likewise droop from pegs, their ends sometimes looped through handles in impossibly pliable ways. Giving new insight to the phrase “soft sculpture,” Raul de Lara’s so