The Captain's Sculpture, parts 116 - 119

 

116. What you are doing Richard, is in the tradition of the famous Warhol, and of Duchamp before him. Duchamp made us see urinals and bicycle wheels as art.

117. And Warhol made us see soup labels as art, and you are making people see manhole covers as art.

118. Her lecture about Warhol was very important to me in many ways. The most important way it was important to me was because she called me ‘Richard,’ instead of Mr. Bertelsby, which is how she had always addressed me before.  

119. At that time I did not begin calling her Agnes, however.

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 112 - 115

 112. After class ended on the following Saturday I put this question to her. “Mrs. Festini,” I said, is it legal for me to cast these manhole covers, and say it is a sculpture that I created.

113. Because I never created the shapes in the first place, and I could never have designed anything like it, even if my life depended on it.”

114. What I got out of Mrs. Festini, bless her soul, was a lecture about Pop Art, and the works of Andy Warhol. I am not going to repeat all that she said, because I realize by now that this idea is very well know about, and I am sure you have heard all about it.

115. Warhol did not design any soup cans, but she explained how he “made us seen things like labels in a new way”, and that is why it was art.

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 108 - 111

108. Did some sculptor years ago design the corner mailbox, or the cast iron street lamp?

 109. Well, they did not design themselves now did they? Someone must have done it, but all those things have never seemed important enough to anyone for any inquiry to be made into who created the shapes in the first place.

 

110. For me it was an important consideration, and I made up my mind to ask Mrs. Festini about it was soon as possible, but meanwhile, what was I to do about the discovery that the Captain’s sculpture was a copy, for which he was taking full credit.

111. Obviously it was none of my business, so I decided to say nothing about it to Mrs. Festini or anyone else.

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 104 - 107

104. “But,” I thought, “What about my casting of the manhole covers, wasn’t I also a forger?” What a terrible quandary I found myself in all of a sudden.

105. I pictured to myself the person who had so painstakingly crafted the original wood mold for the cast iron manhole cover. I could see him now, in my minds eye, complaining to the police about my doings, complaining to the Captain of the police himself, and his crew in the sculpture studio.

 

106. What I was doing was even worse that what the Captain was doing, because I wasn’t crafting a copy of the thing, but simply casting it directly from life, and calling the cast a work of art, created by yours truly, Richard Bartlesby, retired postal clerk, and forger of man-hole covers.

107. I knew for a fact that whomever had created the manhole covers was probably long dead, and besides, has anyone ever seen an artist’s signature on any of these millions of utilitarian metal objects we are surrounded by everywhere?

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 100 - 103

 100. I was in a gift store looking at the figurines of the sort my mother hated, and that I had smashed so many years ago, and on a shelf among them was the Captain’s sculpture, cast in plaster, but painted to look like bronze. It was the exact same figure, the same size and the same details.

101. The work that the Captain was bringing to class each week, and working on at home with feverish diligence was a forgery.

102. How he was managing to duplicate it so perfectly I had no idea, and I certainly could never have done such a masterful copy of the thing no matter how hard I might have tried.

103. Apparently, he had found a piece of sculpture he greatly admired, purchased it, and was completely absorbed in duplicating it. I am quite positive it would have never crossed his mind that he as forging something, and that it might even be against the law.

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 96 - 99

96. Can a work of art be too good, can something modeled in clay be too perfect, so perfect indeed that you can hardly resist the impulse to fling the thing right down onto the cement floor of the studio room.

97. One thing is for certain, I could not have done anything even remotely as good as the Captain’s sculpture, I would not have even ventured to try.

 98. I continued with my castings of metal street covers, and although the other students admired them, I had the distinct feeling that they thought it was all a kind of pointless gimmick.

99. Then something happened that altered the entire situation and put me in a terrible predicament. I will tell you what this problem was, and I wonder what you would have done if you found yourself in a similar situation.

The Captain's Sculpture, parts 92 - 95

92. Perhaps that explains my predicament, having set out to make a confession, I keep finding ways to avoid it. I could go back and begin again, but before I do, I have just a few more things to say about the Captain, and his sculpture.

93. A discussion of the Captain’s wonderful sculpture now became a regular part of our Saturday afternoon sculpture class at the museum.

94. I am not going to say I was jealous of all the attention Mrs. Festini was giving to her star pupil, but certainly something bothered me about the situation.

95. First of all, I have to say that I very much disliked his model of some deer with antlers standing majestically on the top of a hill and looking over his shoulder. I have no words that can convey my aversion for the thing.