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Social Commentary In the first year after moving to our new home I counted 21 traffic accidents at the intersection by our house. I called 911 at least a dozen times. For several years neighbors had petitioned to install a stop light to slow the traffic. I made this snow sculpture. Shortly afterwards traffic engineers counted 22,000 vehicles passing through the intersection daily. A stop light was installed within the year.
The Snowbizz logo
It took three more elections before I finally got elected to the School Board. I just wore the voters down. Phil, the ape above our school administration building, became my campaign manager. Bill Clinton was another target of my commentary. I sculpted him twice the first time with a saxophone just after his inauguration. That was an olive branch from me, a Republican, to the new Democrat in the White House. A couple years later I sculpted Mt. Rushmore. Like the Dinosaurs in 1988 as time went on I couldn't help but keep fussing with it as time went on. About the same time news stories were talking about how Bill Clinton was carrying around history books about his presidential predecessors. It was said he was worrying about his legacy. I couldn't help but sculpt him down below with a pair of binoculars looking up perhaps in hope of being added to the granite quartet.
I felt if I carved the name of his hometown on his back it might be possible to tell who he was supposed to be. Of course, Hope is what this sculpture is all about. But it was about this time that the first stories began circulating about Bill putting the moves on Paula Jones. I was a little embarrassed to have a sex harasser in my front yard even if most people didn't know who he was supposed to be. When the Green Bay Packers got to the SuperBowl that year I decided the time was ripe to the Prez into the "First Cheesehead." Although the Tribune didn't have a clue who he was supposed to be they put a photo of Bill in the paper.
Here's a little reflection of mine about the President: Sculpting Bill Clinton More recently I decided to combine a sculpture of the three wisemen, built with Christmas in mind, with a little political/theological commentary about where the wisemen hailed from. They came from the East. I'm afraid that once again the message was lost on the general public. Very few people know what Iraq looks like on a map or associate Iraq with the lands to the East from which the magi are reported to have hailed from.
Carved onto the map of Iraq were the
words from Luke, I can't end on such an uplifting note. BC got a lot of my attention. When he was leaving the White House he decided he couldn't keep both Buddy the dog and Socks the cat. He dumped Socks. (Not that it did poor old Buddy much good. He got hit by a car at the Clinton's new home) Take one look at a picture of our
family and there will be no doubt who's side we took. I had no choice but to rush to Socks's defense and call on the President to use his executive power to pardon Socks. God knows, Clinton pardoned a helluva lot of other miscreants a day or two before he left office..
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