The Ambiguous Family, part 2

What raw material is better to depict families under siege than wrecked truck hoods?  One of my favorite locations for sculptural ideas is the local wrecking yard. 

Specifically, older truck hoods are the best to use – they are bigger than those on cars, tend to be flatter (and yield more ‘blank canvas’, so to speak), have less complicated structural reinforcement to work around, and with a little looking you can find ones that have wonderful rust patterns on them. 

I also recommend a trip to the junk yard for anyone debating a car purchase – the vast majority of vehicles there were from Detroit’s drawing boards.  It may be that GM, Ford & Chrysler are overrepresented in the cars on the road (and thus in the junkyards as well), but my own experience owning several says they were intended to last the life of the loan and that’s it.  But, hats off to them for providing raw material for our artistic foolishness.

In contrast, cardboard makes a difficult prototyping material for sculptures this size.  I felt a little guilty for stealing it from the recycling bins, but then again, maybe I’m just participating in re-recycling.

Ammo Table, part 4

The search and procurement of empty ammunition casings has proven to be as interesting, if not more, than actually making this table.  So far I’ve been involved with the local police department, several shooting ranges, and friends and family with an interest in (or job that requires) guns.  The folks at “Get Some Guns & Ammo” (no, seriously) have been particularly helpful. 

As a side-note, I recently met a wonderful Australian couple deep inside Canyonlands National Park, and one of the things they wanted to do while in the States (besides exploring Canyonlands and climbing around the Rockies) was to shoot assault rifles.  I’m not sure if that statement said more about their sense of adventure or more about the perception of the American West – probably a bit of both.

The table structure and subsurface is near completion, and I’ve done a few smaller prototypes to make sure the effect will be striking enough.

And another image that I think might be particularly striking and invite some animated discussion: