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Snow sculptures 2012-13 Memorial to Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy
This sculpture began after a six inch snowfall in December. The first that stayed on the ground of the year. I quickly transferred most of the snow from my backyard to a pile in my front yard. I had no inspiration for any sculpture at the time. My intention was to quickly make at least some sort of quick and easy sculpture so that I wouldn't break my 25 year record of at least one sculpture a year in my front yard. I'd decided to make a snowflake in honor, I guess, for just getting some snow. Sandy Hook changed all that. The image I chose began as an angel with outspread arms as if to enfold the viewer. The weather changed after I had the snow piled up and we got about five inches of rain .While a lot of the City's snow melted the pile I'd already built up only ended up being soaked through. This assured that I would be able to treat the snow like clay - sticky and malleable- but there had been too much rain. The rain had made the snow pile too slushy to give it the strength it needed for the wings. They would have calved off the pile. I had to wait until the temperature dipped a couple days later so that ice crystals in the upper portions gave the wings the strength to have the snow below them carved away. By the time the weather had given me suitable snow - frozen on the top but still damp and sticky at the core (which I could scoop out and used to amend part of the sculpture) I had seen one photograph of the children outside Sandy Hook that particularly affected me. It showed a boy with his hands cupped over his mouth and a slightly larger girl holding him around the shoulder her head lowered with the gravity of the moment. I instantly knew that it was these children that the angel was meant to be reaching out to.
A few days of fierce sun led to the crumbling of the angel and a pretty sorry display for a couple weeks which embarrassed me because the remnants of the memorial offerings remained. When an unexpected day of warmth popped up in early January I decided to make a quick change but to what? I didn't want to do a new sculpture that was far from the message of the first but I wanted something child friendly. I did a random Google image search for "fanciful creatures". Among many fanciful images were a couple cuddly pictures of dogs and cats. I then did a search of dogs and cats. I found a cute photo of a kitten hidden under the ear of a bloodhound. Mine was similar with the primary exception that the face I made faced heavenward instead of down toward the traffic below. Oh, and I added a kitten's tail so there would be little doubt about what it was supposed to be.
Lincoln Free GOP or the Ghost of John Wilkes Booth haunts the GOP I should finish this snow sculpture tomorrow Saturday, Feb. 15. I nearly finished it today, Valentines Day, as my tribute to the greatest Republican and first or second greatest President Abraham Lincoln who is as absent from today's GOP as American flag lapels are ubiquitous. This is the clay sculpture I made as a model before hand. Here it is perched above the Confederate flag which I plan to finish and paint red white and blue tomorrow.
White Elephant (Southern Strategy)
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