In 2008 I entered a contest to present my ideas to decorate jet and air plane sculptures which would be temporarily on display in Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia. I was contracted to create two of my designs and I was given three months to execute the completed sculptures. Here are the designs I submitted and what I wrote about my concept for each jet.
Crystal Constellations:
"When thinking about jets and airplanes, our relationship to the sky above us naturally comes to mind. "Crystal Constellations" captures the some of beauty and the mythology of that sky. Throughout history mankind has looked up into the night sky and appreciated the beauty of the stars. Many cultures have named groups of stars and built elaborate stories around them. I have included representations of some of the more popular of these constellations in my jet."
Safe Landing:
"Safe Landing" is a tribute to the need for natural spaces near our urban centers such as Crystal City. Roaches Run Waterfowl Sanctuary is located just across the George Washing Memorial Parkway from Reagan National Airport. It is an oasis both for wildlife and for the people who go there to reconnect to nature. This jet is a reminder of some of the beauty of the trees and wildlife you can find there."
There was a kickoff party where we met our sponsors and got to see the actual sculptures. we would be decorating. I was lucky because one of my artist friends Christie Otvos also got chosen to do two sculptures so we spent a lot of time working together in the studio space they made available to the artists.
We quickly realized these sculptures had a tremendous amount of surface area to cover. I invested many hours in this project and was pleased with the final results on both of my jets.
You can learn more about the project from the Crystal Flight Blog. Once the sculptures were completed they were loaded on a truck and distributed around the city.
