J. Thomas Wells        www.theta-art.net

The Flying Flisk - In 1999, I was on a film crew that was documenting the first East Coast Kinetic Sculpture Race, hosted by the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. This was a race of human powered sculptures that traveled a 12 mile course that included traversing a sand pit, a mud pit and the Baltimore harbor.  The course was monitored by kinetic cops
dressed as chickens. They made sure you didn’t take any short cuts, didn’t break any nonexistent speed limits, and always had your resident sock monkey on board at all times.  There were trophies  awarded for the most dramatic break down, the best water entry, the fastest, the slowest and the coveted “middle of the pack” trophy. There was even one for the best bribes to the chicken cops – usually done with candy bars, muffins or movie passes.  The pure unadulterated impractical goof of this event caught me, hook, line and sinker. I just had to get in on it. So I designed my sculpture and called it the Flying Flisk ( flisk – a British term for a caper or a whim) and began the adventure of bringing this heady craft into the real world for the next race the following year. But the project was being delayed by the engineer who was translating the design into CAD 3D. He finally confessed that he actually hated the design. It was a labor of love project and he was not in love with it. It was mid year and too late to start again from scratch so the project was aborted. But my excitement was not so easily extinguished, I had already left the launch pad and was in orbit, with nowhere to land. So when I walked back through my studio with shelves full of my collected “junk” my creative engine found its new fuel and I started combining things into assemblage sculptures. I made 22 items and had my first show a month later.