Michael Rowe’s continuing series, Conditions for ornament, has followed a strict program of formal investigation of the vessel, characteristically abstracting its qualities of containment and its relationship to the surrounding space. Cornerwork: candle/flower holder is a recent extension of these investigations, with the precise placement of the object on a wall corner creating a tense spatial relationship to interior space, a placement given even more tension through its positioning in place with a single nail. While the experimental and exploratory spirit of the Bauhaus pervades Rowe’s work, his form and material references to the traditional trades of the tinsmith and silversmith add other, more vernacular, historical nuances to work that is nonetheless wholly contemporary in its presentation.