Roger's
Purple Heart
by
Ross Rice
...I
had an early seven that were contenders. I was just ambling along,
just waiting for some light to go off, and I was in Ellenville,
down at the Freight House, an antique store, and I crossed paths
with this guy who was one of the directors of the Military Order
of the Purple Heart [Bill Bacon], and he handed me his card, and
I saw the image.” The image caused a “light to go off.”
Baker showed Bacon an aerial shot of the Statue of Liberty on the
wall. Bacon was blown away, and plans were underway immediately.
After a few meetings with the Purple Heart Hall of Honor and the
Orange County Commission of Parks, Baker made his drawings, thanks
to Mr. Livesey, a suitable field (Thomas Bull Park) was selected,
and it was back to the tall grass for Baker.
Baker
starts with a field two to three weeks after it has been hayed,
when the grass is about six to ten inches high. He and his longtime
assistants, Chris Flueck and Clyde Marel, arrive in the morning
just after the grass dries. He paces off some measurements and starts
stretching out reference strings. Lines are sprayed with a diluted
lime/water mixture - enough to actually be beneficial to the soil.
“Every design has a different approach. This piece had two
different things going on....a lot of it was symmetrical, because
it’s a heart... but the portrait of Washington wasn’t.
You just figure it out. You say: hey, I’ve got an arc here,
so what do I want to do? You wanna have someone reeling in the line
at a certain rate, like, about this fast, as I walk. That’ll
create an arc...I usually create a system for certain things, but
it’s all different.” The fun part for Baker seems to
be the process of figuring out ways to do what seems impossible:
create something at ground level that looks right from the air -
without actually SEEING it from the air.
CONTINUE...
|
