"What's in Your Worship?" a new series of sculpture

“OverHeads” speak to our modern American tribal worship rituals. These car interior components (over head consoles) have morphed into tribal mask like objects based on the spiritual conditions that the components may suggest. I use shredded tires that I collect from the highways, and upholstery fabrics from local industries. Meditation on the suggested spiritual states drove decisions for design of these pieces. Each has a message and it’s own story. “What’s in Your Worship?” is the headline for showing these ritual-like objects. Each posting will have the meditations on one of these in the series. Several have animated presentations that go with them. Here is the first:

Golden Calf-

We revert to what we are familiar with under duress, or when we don’t know what else to do. Consider the people who said: Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses, we don't know what has happened to him." (Exodus 32:2)

They had seen the plagues in Egypt, they had experienced the Passover, they had witnessed the red sea part, and passed through. Now after a short wait for the spiritual message they give up and revert to what they knew, demanding that Aaron the priest make them a golden calf to worship.

What do you revel in? What gods go before you in your daily life? Cars, homes, Sports, Movies? We revert so quickly. Our rote response kicks in and we do what is practically a reflex. So often these things are so far from our real spiritual encounters that it is a wonder that the ten commandments survived at all.

In reviews of actual police shoot-outs where officers died, they found pockets full of casings. Precious seconds had been wasted in the heat of battle to pick up the empties, not because it was a good idea but because that is what they had done in training! (This practice was changed.) So what have you conditioned yourself to do? What is on your training table?

When we come to worship, and we seek to worship in spirit and truth, we may be under pressure that we are not used to. It may take longer to get it started than we had thought or planned for. The rest of our life enters in at these points and we revert to what we know. “We don’t know what became of that guy who went up the mountain, let’s do what we always did.”

What’s in your worship?

Thanks,

Tj SculptureByTj.com

Back to The Mission – 57 Descending a switchback after Duchamp

After all the Nike studies and creating 5 new pieces I came back to the original objective “The 57 descending”, a work based on the Painting “Nude Descending a Staircase” I had a mold for the bronze pedestal sized “Boomer’s Nike” so I cast a bunch of these and constructed the model. All through an exercise like this I am thinking about the full sized version and what it will take to make one of these that is 12 feet high and could weigh several tons. I assembled the components and modeled the transitions into the finished the model. Next came a rubber mold to cast it in, the most complicated mold I have ever designed, with fins projecting in all directions. But I was determined to cast it all in one piece. Quick calculations told me this could weigh 2 to 300lbs and would need two people and a chain fall to manage the casting process. And this was just the pedestal size! The mold was designed for that purpose.

. A nice yellow beige color was created for the base mix to imitate the Duchamp painting The piece was cast in Concrete. An assistant and I managed to do the casting in about an 8 hour session and it worked out pretty well. My new area for wet grinding cement was tried out during this project and of course I had to re-design the set up for improvements. I have some ancient iron wheeled carts for factory transport that turned out to be great turn tables for this heavy, wet finishing work. The piece was ready for the Velocity show in Minneapolis. It weighs about 230lbs. and I do have to bring my engine hoist when I install this baby.

Every 15 degrees or so is a brand new composition, and when you experience descending a mountain road the energy is a lot like this. I hope I paid sufficient homage to Duchamp in this composition. And to the Harley Earl team that created those beloved Chevy fins. I look forward to the day I can build the big one.

My last few thoughts and spin outs on the Nike series were about the dreams of car collectors. Like dear in the headlights, all they can see is their favorite. The rest are of no importance, hence the headlight pieces as wall reliefs for My 57 Chevy fans,. Oh and one last note; under construction is the “Rites of Passage” installation with a 57, but this will wait for my next series of postings on the big installations in the Art park.

Next time: the Overheads-my forayer into Modern American Tribal Art using car parts

Thanks

Tj

Bug- The foreign invasion of an Icon

The last Nike I created was homage to the most recognizable car design on the planet, the VW Beetle.

This German import was so friendly and benign that many just loved it for it’s appearance. The Beetle was used in the Disney movies “Herby” because their research showed a real friendly connection and humanization of this design. People think it is cute. For me it brings an image of the financially conservative, slightly green thinking hippy culture that said “simple was best”, and “peace love and drugs man”, not raging horsepower. ( insert hand symbol here next to head-banded face with Lennon glasses)

When you look carefully at the design elements it is amazing how insect like the components really are. With very little alteration the stock components of the beetle became “bug”, so lifelike as a giant cartoon insect that most do not realize it is all parts from the same car. Only those poor bastards like me (who had to keep one alive by personally disassembling and reassembling ) recognize those parts instantly.
Two hoods create wings, upper and lower fenders plus a pair of deck lids create the body. And it really seems to fly. It is almost too cartooninsh due to the uber-friendly design forms but speaks to a whole movement in car culture. I was able to borrow back a 1954 oval window Beetle that I traded away to get molds for the full sized version. So the big “Bug” was born.

At an art fair I noticed people could not resist touching the head lights on this piece. I would glimpse them from the corner of my eye when they thought no one was watching and the hands would go to the headlights. I was just down from some food booths and by the end of the show I had to wash off the greasy hand prints!
Now suspending this form makes it fly. For the “Velocity” show in Minneapolis I hung it from an engine hoist. Foe my Impact show in Chicago I built a steel sky hook to display it on in the gallery garden. This was great until we got a foot of wet snow and my suspension system bent down to the ground! I’ll get it
My ambition? A mobile with five of these swarming around each other for the airport in Wolfsburg, Germany where it was born. My T shirt design “bugswarm”
is homage to the big mobile. Ah maybe some day this piece will actually fly. In the mean time I’ll have to be content to let it light where it may.

Next time:
The realization of the 1st Concept: 57 descending in stone.
Thanks as always comments welcome SculptureByTj.com

AH Freedom, like the ability to fly!

AH Freedom, like the ability to fly! That was the promise of the early American sport cars. They were designed to entice the growing affluent of the 50s to buzz around the country in a care free style like the Italians and British did in their fiats and triumphs. And just maybe you might take one of these to the track as well! GM experimented with fiber glass and put one into production, followed quickly by Ford. But both introductory models were under powered and not real race cars, just super sexy sporty possessions for living the American dream. Who can forget the Rout 66 theme song and that cool image of the Vette going down the long strip of two lane at dusk. Or Richard Dryfus’ glimpses of that elusive vixen in American Graffiti, sitting just ahead of that port hole window on the T Bird’s hard top. Man these sweet little machines were young and sexy and liberating. Most of you can recite a good portion of the lyrics to “Daddy took the T Bird” ( fun, fun, fun)



So The Nike monuments to the Car guy generation needed these two. First came the little vette. The 50s rear end was quite “buzzing bee” like and the side scallops were the shape of wings. This sculptural object easily became an insect like thing, but fast and floating. The “Buzz Around” became Nike #3 with no wheels at all, sort of a hover craft in statue form. The one I did in Cement allowed me to try out staining and the rich patina possible with these materials looks like some African wood from a long used object of fetish. I love it just parked on a black base representing that highway we all longed to ne on.
the first Vett’s. rear end soon gave way to a sharper aerodynamics that stretched them into faster visual forms and they lost the friendlier and more tranquil feel of rout 66. They became power happy and ostentatious as they got bigger.

Then there was the label from a native American spirit that was applied to the Ford answer to the corvette. The logo was all power but the car was more cute. Certain elements of the 57 thunderbird got more aggressive in the second generation. I did a lot od desigh on a kit car done from the 57 T Bird. It was tooled to fit a VW chassis and could be assembled in a snap using the Bug windows and crank down mechanism (but I digress).
The 57 T Bird is more rare because they didn’t sell as well as the 55 and 56. They were a little bigger and the tilted fins more aggressive. For me it was these that made this bird fly, Like tucked jet wings.

and as I began to condense the elements I saw the profile of a spirit bird in those wings, diving on the sole of a car enthusiast longing for his time on the road. I set up to do it like the last few with no cabin features but that unforgettable port hole window and hard top were stunning features that identified this car. Then I tried reducing this element and the profile, to my amazement became an aggressive bird beak, very true to the Thunderbird logo and concept... The canted tight wings sped a diving bird of prey type fuselage In the true spirit of the Indian Lore mixed with machine. “Bird” became a new Nike.

Oddly enough I found volunteers who had vintage cars who told me they would let me mold them for the full sized pieces, and both have slipped away from the initial offer. So no big buzz or Bird yet. I’m still looking for the right car for a one night stand in the plaster booth which would immortalize it as the father of a Nike monument to the Baby Boom generation of car guys. Any Takers out there? I promise I will not even scratch her!

Next time: The foreign invasion / infestation in cars goes Nike.
Thanks as always comments welcome SculptureByTj.com