Malcolm Tibbets' Artwork Installation at Burning Man 2017

Vaughn McMillan

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Many woodturners are familiar with Malcolm's work, but for those of you who aren't, for a number of years, Malcolm has been creating some of the most cutting-edge segmented work on the planet. This year he decided to do an installation at Burning Man. This involves some woodturning, but it's got more sawing, planing, and gluing than your average lathe project. Among the stats that caught my eye at the end of the video is the fact that he used 15 gallons of Titebond III in the process...

https://youtu.be/MyROaNXAiVQ

Not too surprisingly, out of 70,000 people there, one idiot saw fit to vandalize the piece. Malcolm has also posted a video showing the aftermath, but I've not watched it yet.
 
Evidently destroying an exhibit sounds like it is becoming more and more common at burning man. Saw another video of a wonderful exhibit the other day and it was destroyed beyond belief. Will see if I can find it and will post it later today.

I watched the video during my lunch break today. That is the video I was talking about. If you notice, it was vandalized once which created the signs hanging at various places on it asking people to not sit or hang from it. Then it was destroyed. Terrible. Kind of like the people that key your car, they don't know you, but you have something nice that for whatever reasons they will never have. Instead of working harder to own such a vehicle, they ruin yours. What a terrible type of mentality. Thanks for sharing this Vaughn.
 
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Lost for words. What an undertaking to create a work of art to have it end up being vandalized and burned.

Once again i am reminded of Franks words, "people are strange critters" or something to this effect.

I imagine he must be feeling a large void now that the project is over. What do you do after a project of that scale.

As to the damage caused, maybe one day we humans will find it in ourselves to fund mental health treatment to even a percentage of what we do weapons of mass destruction.

Just take note of the global arms buildup at present and consider how better humanity could put those resources to work.

Peace.
 
A few years ago when I was installing artwork, I had a chance to see and hold a few of Malcolm's pieces. We were at a client's house (the lady who own's Pink's Hot Dogs in LA) and she had several wooden sports balls on a shelf. (Basketball, football, soccer ball, etc.) I had a hunch they might be some of Malcolm's work, and sure enough his signature was on the base of each. He did a limited series of sports balls early in his art career (he's a retired engineer, as I recall). I complimented the lady on her choice of artists, and she said she didn't know anything about the balls other than they were something her late husband had picked up in a gallery somewhere.

Here's a quick Google search of some of Malcolm's work:

https://www.google.com/search?q=mal...nUkMPWAhXCiFQKHeJkAoAQsAQIPA&biw=1920&bih=941
 
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