Reclamation 1978

"In Reclamation she has employed a minimum of means, essentially a[n] ...animal's head, a wooden enclosure and hay over the ground. Her association of disparate elements engenders a feeling of strangeness. Byars has said that she thinks of the piece as a kind of tribute to the animal, a type of memorial. The outer structure separates the animal in space, and gives the head an aura of importance. She feels her use of hay originates from childhood memories of playing in a barn on her grandmother's Nebraska farm. In this piece, this material might also connote a religious symbolism of hay in a manger. Byars' work is quiet, thoughtful and contemplative. It is evocative, suggestive of personal associations and fantasies to individual viewers."
—Judy Collischan Van Wagner
Public Art Program, Long Island University
—Judy Collischan Van Wagner
Public Art Program, Long Island University
Dream Stones

"Donna Byars' Dream Stones make soft and evocative references to abandoned graveyards or other half-buried relics."
—Amy Anderson
Village Voice, review, June 5, 1979.
—Amy Anderson
Village Voice, review, June 5, 1979.