Willie Cole created this work by scorching the surface of a canvas with a hot clothes iron, and then stretching the scorched canvas over a wooden frame shaped like an ironing board. The iron scorches create layers of mask-like shapes that run down the length of the work’s surface. The iron evokes connections to domestic labor, while the layered pattern speaks to the systematically crowded bodies of kidnapped Africans brought to America on slave ships, the shape of which Cole has likened to ironing boards. For Cole, the work is ultimately about energy. Clothes irons transfer heat to a surface in order to eliminate wrinkles. If used in one way, that energy is an instigator of beauty. If applied too long in one spot, the energy becomes an instrument of destruction, scorching the surface and corrupting what it was supposed to make perfect. Cole uses old irons and the burn marks they leave behind to locate humanity in the residual energy of a consumer product.