Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The reincarnation of Ben Franklin


As long as I am busy setting up my new studio and everything is in a big heap... which is pretty much all I could do to clear out space to paint the walls, I figured I would add a new... and by new I mean old... image from a 1982 sculpture to my Creative Archives category. The reincarnation of Ben Franklin was an 8 foot tall conglomeration of Rea bar, Light bulbs.
A tin Bucket and a Glass jar filled with cement... for shoes of coarse... All wired together with bare Copper wire. The idea was to put him on top of a high hill... then Fly a kite from his arm as a Thunder Strorm was approaching and watch him light up!! It would have been so simple, but people started filling my head with all kinds of ideas about how it would need to be on a platform raised up off the ground... and grounded... and a wire cage around it ....and and and... pretty soon it never happened. It was a beatiful piece, I have no idea whatever happened to it. So now I am looking at the future creative vision I have been working on and appreciating the fact that there is still a little bit of Ben Franklin in my heart. I am planning a two year fellowship in which I will create and set sail to three Electric Water Ships. One each for my Father, Mother and Brother. Each ship will be made from a small wooden fishing boat with a sail covered in light bulbs. There will be a generator on board to light the sail. The weathering that will occur during the life of the work is a charachteristic I wish to capture. The possibility of a lightning strike to one of the boats, or rain breaking the hot lightbulbs is very exciting to me.

6 comments:

Idyllopuspress said...

He's gorgeous.

You'll need champagne for those ships. Have you any idea where they'll be set sail?

I've all kinds of questions. Too many to ask.

Anonymous said...

Oops. That was me above.

Miss Jane Mansfield said...

Thanks for the compliment... I hadn't thought about the champagne... Sounds like a great idea. At least one of them will be here in the states, probably the great lakes area or out east, NY. If I can find the port my father originally set sail from as a Merchant Marine in WW2. My mothers Ship will sail from Iceland where she was born and raised, and probably my brothers too... although I still have a lot of research to do.

Miss Jane Mansfield said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jennifer said...

Oh my, Ben sounds like he would have been awesome!

I love the idea of the ships... sounds like modern age Viking ships.

Miss Jane Mansfield said...

I may just re create the reincarnation of Benjamin J one day... after all with 50 good years of creativity ahead of me there is nothing more I would love to do than wake up each day and play like a child exploring life with a butterfly net and a jar in my hand chasing the wind on a sunny day!!