It was supposed to be a day of unveiling. After almost a year of design work and fabrication, Robert Ramirez planned to debut his metal sculpture at tonight's
Celebrate Kaleva festivities (6pm, at the Sculpture Walkway, on Walta St. across from the Kaleva Tavern; in case of rain, visit the Kaleva Roadside Village Park, on 9 Mile Rd., near Puisto St.).
The evening program will go on - it includes music, a ceremony recognizing two prominent citizens, readings from the Kalevala (Kaleva's namesake epic poem) and a 75-year re-dedication of the 1940s' murals.
But the sculpture has been delayed at the shipyard, so to speak, intentionally held back because of unexpected challenges facing Ramirez. He was commissioned last fall to replicate the ship of Väinämöinen, the Kalevala's ancient shaman-bard. The ship is the scene of a battle between rival forces over possession of the Sampo, a mysterious, mechanical cornucopia that churns out whatever its holder desires.
Unfortunately, Ramirez doesn't have the benefit of his own Sampo. His medium - recycled coat hangers - involves the laborious preparation and assembly of materials using no tools but a pair of wire cutters. When finished, his ship sculpture will span about 9 feet in length, each wire hanger straightened by hand before any other work takes place.
Ramirez has been building similar structures for 25 years, largely within the time allowed by his work in the landscape and irrigation business. He noticed the popularity of grapevine wreaths while working in Traverse City and decided to try his hand at it. For the sake of durability, he used the 16-gauge steel wire typically used in coat hangers as an internal frame. Eventually, admirers of his work signaled their interest in seeing what he could do with the metal alone.
Years later, with his work on display in 30 states and several countries, Ramirez has tackled almost every form imaginable: firefighter helmets, helicopters and cartoon characters. "Some of them are small enough that you can carry them around in your hand," he says. He works at the other end of the spectrum, too. One of his largest pieces was for the Traverse City Cherry Festival, which wanted a basket for its Cherry Queen festivities. "It was 7 feet tall and took 8 men to lift it," says Ramirez.
This year, as he moved from the design phase to construction phase, he encountered a sea change in raw material availability. Suddenly his free wire hangers were hard to come by. "When I first started, uniform companies would reuse them a few times, then they let me have them," says Ramirez. "I used to go to dry cleaners', too, but now they all recycle them, rather than give them away. I went from paying nothing for them to paying 28 cents per hanger."
This enormous cost increase has greatly delayed his work. The hangers from which Ramirez is constructing his 9-foot ship now must be ordered by 500-lot cases, and he expects the final product to contain about 3,000 of them. To make matters worse, this sudden addition to his materials budget came just as Ramirez and his wife were trying to cope with recent job losses and foreclosure proceedings.
The project itself has posed its own novel challenges. Ramirez's traditional strategy uses an interior frame hidden by the external sculpture. For the first time, this project has included a level of authenticity that allows the viewer to peer through the war ship without seeing an obvious support structure. "It has a deck on top with a hull, but to stay realistic with this one, I had to make sure there was nothing in the middle," says Ramirez. "It's so different than anything I've ever made." After two prototypes twisted into figure-eights under their own weight, Ramirez finally solved the problem, but these design concerns - not to mention the re-bending of a lot of coat hangers - have taken more time than expected.
The mythical Sampo in the Kalevala story is an object of value because of its magic manufacturing ability. Grain, salt and gold pour out of it without a drop of sweat expended by its holder. Much of the Kalevala's story revolves around the jealousy triggered by this wonder, as well as the blacksmith Ilmarinen, who built the magical item. His first efforts produced only tchotchkes, but the Four Winds helped him stoke his furnace to the higher temperatures needed to produce the Sampo. Ramirez, however, will have to carry on without any mystical forces beyond the gift that creates his work, and his last box of hangers. As the normal September winds pick up in strength, he plans to complete the sculpture. A new date for a dedication ceremony will be established soon.
Art Around the World with Mrs. Wahr is designed for 10 to 12 years old and will explore art from China, Mexico and Australia. Having lived and traveled these worlds, Mrs. Wahr will share with students what’s unique about each of the cultures and their art. Students will then have the opportunity to create their own versions of art from these cultures. All materials are included in the workshop fee of $30. The workshop is scheduled for Monday thru Friday, June 20 – 24, from 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon at the Ramsdell.
