I'm no angel!

DC-based artist Dan Steinhilber has been in a residency this summer at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens making concrete angels for a project he calls "Casting Angels." Anyone who just happens to be walking by or visiting (like I did this past weekend) can lay down in the sandbox and flap his or her arms and legs like wings leaving an impression that resembles an angel. It's not particularly dignified and you get sand on every. single. part. of. your. body. Dan then fills the space you leave behind with concrete and when it hardens after three days, he lays out the angels around the park. It's pretty darn awesome for a lot of reasons!

Just love the interactivity and community-engagement aspects, and the good plain fun of this project. Anyone can participate and it's easy to figure out what to do because most of us have made a snow angel on a cold winter day in the front yard of our house when we were kids or made a sand angel on a hot summer day at the beach. (Both things often happened when school was closed so all the more reason to be happy!) Even if you never did either of those things, you still jump right in the sandbox and start playing.

When I arrived at Socrates in the early evening on Saturday, a group of local men were sitting on a nearby bench telling stories, laughing, listening to music, and fishing in the East River. One guy named Kenny Angel was helping Dan mix the cement with sand and water to make the concrete. He seemed to know his way around concrete and was instructing us on the proper technique of blending the ingredients in just the right proportions. He also sang songs by Rod Stewart and other crooners from the 70s and 80s while we worked and he bragged a lot about the 30-year-old original Bruce Springsteen concert t-shirt he was wearing. I came with a small posse and we all got to work right away helping Dan, shovel sand, clean tools, pat bubbles out of the concrete, dig out the completed sculptures, rake sand, mix concrete, spray water into the mixer, and whatever else he asked us to do. One of the most magical experiences I have had in a long time.

The finished sculptures will be part of an exhibition in the sculpture park starting September 12. The Washington Project For the Arts and the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities funded Dan's residency in the park. There is also talk of bringing this project to DC next spring. That would be sooooo cool!

Read Blake Gopnik's Washington Post article on the project HERE.

Read Jeffry Cudlin's take on it HERE and HERE.