So Simon, I can't beat your having an obnoxious brother allegedly connected to 9/11, but I'll raise you my distant cousin(?) involved in writing either poorly researched or deliberately deceptive garbage for this scam. If I get a hold of this Andy Rathbun by phone, I'd like to ask a question or two. He's out of the office until September 10th. Hmm. If it does turn out he's not worthy of my trust, such is life, I suppose. Remember when we apparently found that fool MITRE employee whose own daughter apparently stands for some kind of eco-utopian hippie activism opposing MITRE? World drama sometimes comes in the form of a family! Go figure!
Then again, it's the Internet, though, so ... is Rathbun even his true name? Here's the article and some of my comments:
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_ ... s-new-life
Work by 9/11 victim gets new life at Franconia Sculpture Park near Taylors Falls
By Andy Rathbun
[email protected]
I suppose story-players "Tamsie Ringler" and student "Aga Sulek" mentioned in the end are totally casual about their meeting the "incredible sculptor" (the sculptures look very expensive and amateur to me, but what do I know about art?).
Anyhow, to get to the article at hand (and how I wish to not touch this thing with my bare hands, it stinks so highly!) I suppose they have a few more dozen of these they will roll out and park (in safe, bizarre locations like Taylors Falls) slowly over the years, but here's the latest one to strike the public's eyeballs here in Minnesota, in a deplorable (but aren't they all?) "local" paper known as Pioneer Press. Its name is Michael Richards. You might remember it was one of those morphs, which looked like a morph.
(CNN: Greg(ory?) Richards) . . . (CNN: Michael Richards) . . . (CNN: Venesha O. Richards)
But wait - wasn't he a New Yorker? No, no, write the 9/11 propagandists, he was doing an artist residency in Minnesota so he's "ours" according to Mr. Rathbun -- all ours. (And whomever else wants to kiss the collective ass of the warmongers.)
This is - to quote Simon - another rather "sick joke" on the part of these hoaxers. "Are you down?" indeed.John Hock, director of the Franconia Sculpture Park in Lindstrom, sets the final bronze of a group of three by the late NYC sculptor Michael Richards. The work, dedicated to the Tuskegee airmen, was installed as a 9/11 memorial at the sculpture park Aug. 28, 2012. The surrounding area eventually will be covered in a very fine black sand. (Pioneer Press: John Doman)
A year after his residency at Franconia Sculpture Park near Taylors Falls, Minn. [read: tiny, controllable population, not to mention Taylors Falls (along with much of our country) is a notoriously corporate area - hp], Michael Richards found himself the recipient of free, prime [hey kids! check it out - it's both free and yet exclusive! - hp] studio space in New York City.
The studio was on the 92nd floor of one of the World Trade Center towers, and Richards was there the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists flew planes into the two towers, killing him and more than 2,700 others. [for Gods' sakes - when are they going to figure out the actual number of their favorite fake-death sims!? Is it 27, 28 or 29 hundred? Or 3,000? Or perhaps it's thousands more, as politicians estimated? - hp]
Are you down with us? Are you down to tell lies about your cultural history in an attempt to erase the evidence of your guilt, crimes and genocide? Get down with us! Blecchh!"The guy had a promising career, and it was cut short," said John Hock, artistic director and co-founder of Franconia Sculpture Park. "He was still an emerging artist but ready to take a real foothold in a sculpture career, which is hard to do."
Nearly 11 years after Richards' death, the park is completing a memorial to him and the other victims of the attacks. The glass fiber resin sculpture Richards created during the month he spent in Franconia has been recast in bronze and will be installed in the park in coming weeks.
Richards used a mold of himself [or was Richards a mold of the sculptures? hard to say in this fiction-spawning-fiction "news" - hp] to cast the sculpture's three life-sized figures, which appear as Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African-American pilots who served in World War II. The airmen were a common theme in Richards' work, which examined social and political issues such as civil rights, Hock said.
The sculpture -- titled "Are You Down?" -- was installed late last month, becoming the park's only permanent piece. An event to dedicate the work and memorialize Richards, 38, and the other victims of 9/11 will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 11.
Aaannnd ... here's his picture from the (almost completely unnavigable) Voices of September 11 site:Hock said Richards originally had wanted to cast the sculpture in bronze for durability, but it was too expensive. Sunlight over the years caused the sculpture to deteriorate, and it has not been shown at the park for several years.
"If we had just let it deteriorate and it got thrown away as trash, it would have been lost forever," Hock said, adding that the piece will help preserve Richards' legacy. "It's an important sculpture."
Recent grants from the East Central Regional Arts Council totaling $30,000 and nearly $15,000 raised through the fundraising website Kickstarter made the repairs and recasting possible.
John Hock brings in the hook for the crane to lift the final bronze into place. (Pioneer Press: John Doman)
"And that's not including everybody's personal time that was donated," Hock said. "We're talking about hundreds of hours in volunteer time to pull this off."
Tamsie Ringler, an assistant professor of sculpture at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, was one of the volunteers who worked on the piece. She had met Richards, whom she called "an amazing sculptor and a wonderful human being," when he was here for his Franconia Sculpture Park/Jerome Fellowship.
A few years ago, she told Hock she wanted to work on the piece and brought one of the figures to the college, where a student, Aga Sulek, helped restore it. "She worked on the figure for about a year, repairing the surface and cleaning it up so it would make a successful print when we cast it," Ringler said.
Ringler said the sculpture was "almost uncanny at times" and the people at the foundry where the piece was cast felt the same way.
"You almost felt his presence at times," she said. "In the room I had him at my school, people would walk in and do a double-take because they thought it was a person sitting there."
Ringler said she worked on the sculpture to contribute to Richards' legacy and also to do something to remember 9/11.
"It's a memorial to him, but it's also a memorial to the entire event," she said. "I hope we get a lot of people coming out to see it."
Andy Rathbun can be reached at 651-228-2121. Follow him at twitter.com/andyrathbun.
What's that? Missing? No picture? Was the morph a little too close for comfort sitting right besides these folks?
(CNN: Greg(ory?) Richards) . . . (CNN: Michael Richards) . . . (CNN: Venesha O. Richards)
...
Come on, Chisago county! Get it together and kick the propagandists out of there! Jesus would do it.
Save the mining operations!