Boomerang
The piece shown here is the recent reincarnation of a previous one: The Performer. The Performer was nearly destroyed in shipping, due to careless packing on the part of a gallery and what could only have been violent handling by UPS. This was around 2 years ago. Many months later, I started receiving emails that the piece had appeared, broken and headless on ebay! There were some bids, and the carcass was purchased. I was then contacted by the new owner about possible repairs. After some time he concluded that he could not afford the repairs and put the sculpture up on ebay again! This time it was purchased by someone else who went to the trouble to actually drive the poor broken fellow up to my open studio a few weeks ago. Moved by the distances and hardships that the sculpture had endured, and the enthusiasm and commitment of its new owner, I recently undertook the task of making the piece whole again. Due to its strange tendency to return from the great beyond I have re-named it “Boomerang”. I feel the attitude in his facial features reveals some of the mischief that no doubt lurks in whatever passes for a soul in the case of roots.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Above left: Sassy new look. Above right: Former glory.
Above left shows the condition in which the piece returned home. Glass head smashed, vacuum tube missing, part of right hand missing, shoulder sockets bent and deformed, wooden base crushed.
Above right shows some of the process of unraveling the squirrels nest of wires that used to drive the missing vacuum tube.
The wood base was glued, clamped, stripped, stained and re-lacquered. New shoulder sockets were turned on the lathe and welded in place of the old ones. A new head was fashioned from an electric drill. I later decided to remove the knobs from his chest and attach a row of rivets that served to look like suit coat buttons. Without the tube in his head, the adjustment knobs were superfluous. All that was needed was a power switch and a motor start button on its base.
This crummy cell phone video shows the original mechanical effect restored to its original state. Though the contrast in the video makes it difficult to see, he also now has a color changing light effect showing through the vents in his chest. I hope his new family will be pleased with the results.
