Aviator Letter Box

It's great to be able to make a piece of sculpture that is out of the ordinary for me and something that pushes me like the old days to meet outrageous deadlines.
   The "Aviator" is really a glorified letter box I did for Frank Cost, who is acting Dean of the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at RIT. He's a great guy with a wonderful sense of humor and will be leaving his post as Dean and returning to the School of Printing, most likely, in the upcoming school year.

The inspiration for the piece comes from Frank's love of anything aviation and his interest in one of the wooden sculptures I did a few years ago entitled "My Big Heart". See right.

Because of the tight deadline (3 days, including my regular teaching load!), I wasn't able to completely finish the piece even though I put in 2 VERY LATE nights. The flier has the start of a helmet and goggles, but the helmet has no straps and he is obviously missing a scarf. The scarf and straps most certainly should be flapping in the breeze like you can see in my original sketch. The clouds were not originally part of the plan. They became a necessity to hide the lower legs and feet that I did not finish. The piece is made out of a variety of materials, most of which are covered with small pieces of newspaper glued on with matte medium. The basic materials are cardboard, wood, aluminum screen and rigid blue insulation foam. The final size was determined by the size of the box. It had to be big enough to hold 8.5"x11" paper. So it is finally about 25" tall.