Materials: Bronze figures, Indiana Limestone Blocks
Dimensions: 8 feet tall, 3 feet wide and 22 feet long. Alphabet blocks with letters of the alphabet on each face and numbered to 5 are 2 1/2 feet cubes. The figures are around 5/1/2’ tall. The pencil and paintbrush are around 7 feet long.
Creativity and hope seem to work together in the human experience. By fulfilling the creative urge inherent in all of us, we are offered hope of a better self and a better world. In this design, I have tried to incorporate representations of all the creative arts into one sculpture in a motif that the child in all of us might relate to. The blocks represent writing and poetry. The figures, designed like stick figures we all drew as children, are posed as in the dance. The pencil and brush (and possibly crayons in the final form) represent painting and drawing
and the eight figures are colorfully finished in various patina colors. The shape, color and placement of the heads and hands represent musical notation and suggest musical rhythms. The movement of the figures across the blocks is joyful and free. Freedom of the mind and spirit, is to me, the epitome of hope, the ultimate goal of the human experience.
I did not want to build a playground. I want my audience to interact with this work physically by touching but I also want my audience interacting mentally and emotionally by reading the alphabet, finding letters and putting them together as words, thinking about how this was made, imagining what the dancing figures are thinking and doing. Wondering: Where are they going? Are they following the leader or working as a group? Can I draw some guys like these? Will I use a pencil or a brush? Do I see any rhythms in the forms, like a musical score? Can I take a pose like the figures and dance with them? I hope the children and staff will continue the questions and communicate with each other about the meaning they take from it. I will include as many different textures as I can into the work to encourage touching. The structure will be engineered to take the weight of a child who might climb on it (or hang on it). The figures are interlaced for structural integrity, forming triangular supports as necessary. The pencil and brush are anchors on the end for lateral support. Standing, sitting and moving between the blocks is encouraged and desired. In short, in am looking for interactivity on all levels.
This is a large work with permanent materials. It is essentially zero maintenance. I can make this piece within the proposed budget due to the economies realized by owning and operating a bronze casting foundry and metal fabrication facility. The figures are a modular design. I need only make individual torsos and heads, all the limbs, hands and feet are the same and are made from single master molds. In addition, using modern computer aided design and fabrication techniques, the amount of labor is greatly reduced. The drawings you see were executed in state- of- the-art 3-D computer programs and are fully ready to be made in bronze and stone from shop drawings generated by the program. The stone work will be executed by Heritage Stone Works of Spencer, IN. I can recreate the sculpture in miniature in my foundry/atelier.
Mark Parmenter