CREATIVITY, Bk 1, Chpt 15
LIFE ON THE EDGE
Chapter 15
The Wizard
Or maybe not.
My next project was supposed to stump everyone. The goal was to light all four plexiglass rectangles simultaneously. SEE BELOW:
The odds were long. A counter from 000 to 999 interfaced with eight buttons and a five place switch, yielding 40,000 combinations. People who saw it liked the craftsmanship. Only the edges of the plastic lighting up were a minor mystery. The buttons were on-off. “On” made a circuit complete. When “off”, not. There was no way to know the setting for each button at any given moment, nor what the circuit did, if anything. Only when a button was depressed, its setting changed.
After testing it at two bars in Bloomington, which meant finding a bartender willing to plug it in, I rewired the insides so twenty settings of the counter, three buttons, and two switch settings made all the rectangles light up together. 120 possibilities of the 40,000 worked. Many other settings caused one, two, or three of the rectangles to turn on.
“Cool,” became “Cute,” became unspoken “What else does it do?”
I put a lot of hours into The Wizard. When I did not get back what I had hoped for, I questioned my motivations. Ego dented, perplexed about what to do next, I shelved making stuff.
BELOW: The bottom of The Wizard 1974.
Months later, I met a woman at a bar. Where else? She talked about her painting. Her discussion about technique lost me, but I identified with her creative process. She was in the Art Department at IU and offered to show me around.
Two days later, I found her working on a large canvas in the paint studio. The sculpture department shared the building. I felt instantly at home, especially after she introduced me to one of the professors. My wheels started turning.
The next day, on the phone, I tracked down the right person and made an appointment for the following week. “Bring your portfolio,” he said.
Being the son of a photographer, I had the good sense to document my pieces as I finished them. My problem was unavoidable, though. No matter how I tried to rearrange things in my head to explain my artistic vision, my portfolio was as slim as my art was undeveloped. I had three pieces: Nicki’s dollhouse, The Box, and The Wizard. I liked ‘50s modern art, Herman Miller Furniture, and maybe Picasso.
When I met with the Area Head of Sculpture, I liked him immediately. He was curious about me and very down to earth. He quickly realized I had no formal art training, which he said was a plus. “Art is subjective to the point that studying or evaluating it becomes pointless.”
Great!
I enrolled in January ‘75. Art History, a foreign language, and other nonstudio art requirements dampened my enthusiasm until I reminded myself I did not have to do it all at once. Plus, a degree and sculpture apparently were as compatible as warm snow. I signed up for Art History and Sculpture Studio. Uncle Roy’s Trust Fund paid for tuition and four months of rent. The rest was up to me. I kept my job at the frame ship.
In art history class, I liked Brancusi’s and Michelangelo’s stuff. Who wouldn’t? Constantin Brancusi, born in Romania in 1876, was considered to be the most influential sculptor of the twentieth century. His nearly 20 year series, Bird In Space, was his most famous work. Michelangelo is one of the most revered beings to have graced our planet, right behind God, Jesus, and Moses, and ahead of da Vinci, van Gogh, and Picasso.
Brancusi’s Bird In Space Series 1923 - 40
Brancusi inspired the first two pieces I built at IU:
ABOVE: Horizontal Wing 1975
BELOW: Vertical Wing 1975
The Line is in the background.
On my next trip to Evansville, I set up Vertical Wing on Dad’s large square end table in the living room. The shape of the base is the piece’s shadow in one position. He did not know what to make of my sculpture any more than he had meaningful advice about my college career. His first reaction echoed his past “Do as I say, not as I do” attempts at guidance. I did not stick around for the second act.
Later in the year, I gave this piece to Bwana and Lucy at their wedding. We had not seen each other for more than a year before their nuptials. They were noticeably cool to me. I was mystified and hurt, but terrified of my temper in confrontations. Lucy let me know my sculpture did not match their interior decor. I choked back a stream of unpleasant words and said, “Opportunity to update your decor. It’s yours now. Happy life.”
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I've not seen those sculptures before. Neat work. I must admit, though, your discussion of the Wizard was hard to follow, only because I'm technically an idiot. If your reader has experience with the different parts and processes, I'm sure it will mean something to them, but for me, it's a foreign language.