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Fabricating and Fantasizing

MARCH 8, 2016
Russian Space Art Vladimir Putin has been quoted as saying of Professor Spollen’s work, “Nice guy, but a little strange, but I kind of like his stuff ”. Putin has also expressed some concern “So who is this guy Spollen”, and how does he know so much about our Russian Space Secrets CIA, MI6,KGB? Professor Spollen has been working very closely with the Russian government both with the Foreign Exchange Public Relations Dept, and the Russian Office of Aerospace.
Vintage Art pieces from an almost forgotten past now have been painstakingly brought back to life. A time of “Sputnik “and rocket launches of manned an unmanned capsules orbiting our planet earth. In this collection you will find strange oddities from toy space pistols from now forgotten soviet space theme parks to absurd early space or smart phones of their time "Russian Space Guns Kiev 1964" The Series Chris Spollen
“Pneumatic Pop Gun” 1963 Russian A hand crafted wood and metal Toy Arcade Pop Pun One of six guns this was a handcrafted arcade gun that was evolved with hitting dimensional orbiting space stations and flying saucers. This game required three pumps of air by the player to make ready each shot. Once released it forced colored corks at the three dimensional space objects knocking as many down as possible was the objective of this game of skill.
Just recently discovered in what appears to have been an early space based amusement park in Northern Kiev Russia. This was probably a space gun from a booth in that park recently dug up and dated to be around nineteen sixty-three or neaten sixty-four. The entire Russian countryside was completely enamored with anything to do outer space and or the space race during this period of Russian past Space history. Items like this one are considered rare but are not uncommon. This example is in very good shape considering its age. This example is fabricated from both metal and wood and looks to be a complete sample.
Ideas flow form at an almost obsessive level of mental imaging and as well as an almost neurotic needs to tinker. Never using a sketchpad always scrambling for paper in the attempt as not to lose an idea or image as they sort of pass by he minds eye in that never-ending river of thoughts. The more one does this the more he mind wants to engage in this process. It is the thumbnail habit on steroids a lifetime of thinking visually gets one to this level. The so called smart phone is the death kiss to such activity as it engages one in endless and mindless activity not that this is a bad thing for some this is a welcome distraction as for me I reuse to have one, it would simply stop my flow and kill my creativity.
New Jersey Mosquito 1964 Staten Island New York Few can probably remember “the mosquito man” but for my gang and me in the early sixties growing up on Staten Island it was a source of great fun. It was simply an old modified surplus army jeep set up with a large barrel of some unknown chemical that when spayed out as atomized fog would kill mosquitos. The truck would drive from block to block slowly spaying out volumemus amounts of thick white fog. It was simply to irresistible for kids of younger years not to jump in it and run around in this thick made man white fog of a magical fantasy world. For some reason all the very large mosquitos were called “Jersey Mosquitos”. I guess the reasoning was that if they were that big they probably flew over from New Jersey to our little island looking for helpless victims. Looking back on this now I did believe at the time that this had to be true. The reason that they were so large was that they had been hatched and raised in the marshes in and around the oil refineries. The fact that had survived that level of pollution was proof that they were now a new and slightly genetically deformed super breed of mosquito. An all-metal sculpture with a wingspan of over three and a half feet with a removable base This one was captured January 2016 at Midland Beach Staten Island New York. It still always starts with doodles and a pencil and a bit of a daydream in this case that curved tail constructed out of multiple cans that simply captured my imagination and drew me towards the creation and completion of this bug.
Eighteen degrees on a very cold February morning and I am carrying around a four-foot robot and phographing this all-metal robot on the beach in the water and in winter. Its eight thirty in the morning as the wind in making my eyes tear, and I must take my gloves off to shoot the camera and my fingers are freezing. The only problem with this entire scenario is that this is exactly when and how you get the best shots. So I simply spray siliconed my old work boots wrapped my head in a large wool scarf and did the photo-shoot, the rest is history.
Moon Landing Well, we did it landed we just landed on the moon yesterday morning in fact, Da Vinci’s new ideas worked. He just confessed to me however that he had never really designed a Rocetship before, I was always interested in human powered flight he just confessed to me but never powered flight as in this case a steam powered flying rocket ship a sort of a “silver bullet”. Well we cannot say very long for I have to teach class tomorrow, but what an amazing journey, space flight is the future and a true adventure for sure.
© 2024 Chris Spollen