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Crazy Sharon


(Click on any image to enlarge it)
In 1968, America had blood on her hands. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated and this nation waged a brutal, unjust war in Vietnam. In the weeks leading up to the Democratic convention in Chicago, young people- disgusted with the war and the Democratic Party, for President Johnson's failure to end the bloodshed- found novel ways to express their outrage.
There was a group that called themselves the Crazies, for instance. A couple of them snuck into the Hilton Hotel, where a $500/plate fundraiser for the Democratic party attracted Senators and film stars.  They disrobed and one of them- Sharon was her name- presented the guests with a real pig's head on a platter.  Her photograph, on page 141 of  late Yippie founder Jerry Rubin's book "Do It!" inspired this sculpture.
Standing 6.5 feet tall, Crazy Sharon is constructed of the same materials my Rock & Roll sculptures are made of- a rigid steel armature fleshed out with Celluclay brand instant papier mache, which works like clay and hardens like wood.  Her 4 wheeled platform is cut in the shape of a short, squat aerial bomb.  I had to constrain its dimensions to fit her in a group exhibit at Cleveland's SPACES gallery.  After these photographs were taken, I hauled her by a short length of chain 7 miles across town on very rough pavement and over a bridge spanning  the once-blazing (in 1969) Cuyahoga River, where much to my dismay I discovered repair crews had posted an endless series of traffic signs smack-dab in the middle of the sidewalk, making her passage seemingly  impossible.
Near despair, I hit on the idea of stepping into the traffic and holding one edge of her platform  level while I rolled the two wheels on the other side over the narrow slice of pavement alongside each sign on the mile and half long bridge.   Again and again and again.  In the rain, with 18-wheelers roaring past inches away.  With me screaming and cursing like a madman.  It took us over an hour to cross that ?#$!@*$!% bridge, but we made it without drawing attention from Mental Health or Law Enforcement.

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