LITTLE ROCK — Dear Otus,
Our family loves to go to Little Rock’s river walk. Our kids, especially, love the artwork. But that latest one at the entrance to the Clinton library grounds is kind of creepy. It scared my 4-yearold who said it looked like a zombie hand. What’s up with that?
- Friedreich Ataxia, Vilonia
Dear Friedreich,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and have the opportunity to reassure you that your child is not weird. Unless you count knowing about zombies at age 4.
The 7-foot sculpture, officially titled Dynamic Echo, has been nicknamed The Left Hand of Bill. It has had a mixed reaction since being installed after Riverfest as the latest addition to the Riverfront Sculptural Promenade.
Installation was completed June 15 by the same crew that is working on converting the fetid swamp at the entrance to the library grounds to the William E. “Bill” Clark Presidential Park Wetlands.
That $2.2 million project will convert 13 acres of snake-infested, trash-filled backwater into a pristinemarsh and alligator farm that pedestrians can safely tour via elevated walkway.
The bronze sculpture, which cost $3.8 million, is by famed landscape and environmental artist Mikyoung Kim of Brookline, Mass. She’s the same artist who created Echo Dynamics, the water-themed sculpture outside Little Rock’s federal courthouse.
Kim was commissioned to do a lifelike rendition of Clinton’s left hand in 2007 for a project that was initially intended to create paperweights and doorstops for the Clinton Museum Store.
Clinton’s left hand was chosen because he is lefthanded and this was the hand he used to sign so many important treaties and bills into law.
Being left-handed, Clinton is in elite company. Only one in 10 Americans is lefthanded, but fully half of the presidents since the end of World War II have been lefthanded. They include Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and Barack Obama.
In October 2007, Kim andher artistic team met with Clinton for four hours in the VIP room of Lauriol Plaza, a popular Tex-Mex restaurant in Washington’s Dupont Circle. She made three plaster casts of his left hand while the former president nibbledgambas al ajillo and nursed a Negra Modelo.
Former Clinton aides Joe Lockhart and Mike McCurry were along to marvel at Kim’s attention to detail. Lockhart had the ceviche and a Corona Light. McCurry had the Maduros and a diet Coke.
In the end, Kim opted for the third cast that depicted Clinton’s open hand grasping upward in hope and supplication. It was a remarkable likeness and the life-size synthetic polymer fiberglass resin bookends made from the cast were huge sellers for $149.99 at the gift shop.
Longtime Clinton confidant James L. “Skip” Rutherford told future daughter-in-law Jessica Dean in aNovember 2008 Good Morning Arkansas interview, “I’ve seen that hand in person countless times. Kim’s sculpture is a magnificently stunning likeness. It almost seems alive. I bought six bookends, a dozen paperweights, three doorstops and the life-sized back-scratcher to give as Christmas gifts.”
When a sculpture was suggested as an entry to the new wetlands project, Rutherford knew right away that Kim’s creation would be perfect.
Kim began her labors in February 2009 and it took her a little more than a year to finish the 8-ton project.
Hundreds have visited the sculpture in the short time it has been open to the public. It has become a popular photo spot for visitors sitting on the hand’s thenar and clutching the nearby distal phalanx.
Art, however, is subjective. Not all the sculptures along the promenade have been well-received. The River Market Pig and Fiesta are lifelike and fairly straightforward. But the creepy abstract humanoids in the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden can be the stuff of Tim Burton-esque nightmares.
Clinton’s giant left hand emerging from the ground has inspired some and been called gauche by others and even sinister by the cynical.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that art is in the eye of the beholder. Judge for yourself.
Disclaimer:
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. E-mail:
HomeStyle, Pages 36 on 06/26/2010