The Good...It's official! My sculpture "Crucible" will become part of the permanent collection of the University of Indianapolis!
The Bad...I leave tomorrow on a 1,200 mile round trip to retrieve my "Riverboat Bench" from Dubuque, Iowa. It was (at one point) to become the first public art acquisition for the City of Dubuque in the 21st Century. It had a donor and had been approved by both the Art Advisory Committee and the City Council.
The Ugly...the General Manager of the City of Dubuque put a stop to the whole affair. According to an article written in the Dubuque newspaper, "The Telegraph Herald", the G.M. managed to get a contract drafted and approved in a meeting (closed to the public) where he (and he alone) had the sole power to remove the bench as soon as ownership was transferred to the City. His intentions were clear from a letter to the council wherein he demanded that they not accept the donation.
Meanwhile...work proceeds slowly on the large granite hand.
It's basically finished, but I continue to refine it. I keep finding things to improve - just making for a better sculpture.
...and speaking of large stone hands...I'm slowly making improvements on this 30,000 lb. stone sculpture that is outdoors. The weather occasionally has some great days for climbing up on the scaffolding and having a go at it.
Cat as the Hat.
6 comments:
That sucks about Iowa...what was the deal again? I like the piece. It has a kind of stylized locomotive presence to it. The hand sculptures are coming out nicely.
Here's a portion of the newspaper story: http://www.thonline.com/news/tri-state/article_de47df10-4233-5f57-bb15-33bf21047060.html
It is the abridged version, as they want you to subscribe to read the whole thing. Basically, the General Manager didn't like it and he got a clause put into the contract in a closed door meeting that would allow him to remove it. So, obviously the donor didn't buy it just to have it immediately disappear. Dubuque hasn't had a public art acquisition since the 1970's - this would have been the first in decades. Disappointing? Why, yes!
As you can see by the 3 deleted additional comments by me, that there's more that I can say about this whole thing. But, hey...the best thing, always, is to let it go and move on.
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