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The Shoveler

An intermittently kinetic life-size push puppet on a plinth with a shovel and a pile of snow. It is part of the Medium Dead series. The sculpture was first exhibited at the World of Winter Festival in Grand Rapids, MI from January 12 - March 10, 2024
credits
Emily Corazón Nelson Lawrence - consultation
Mary Reid Kelley & Patrick Kelley - consultation
exhibition history
World of Winter, Grand Rapids, MI - 2024
a photograph of a human-sized sculpture that looks like push puppet shoveling snow on a plinth in a concrete plaza
[this photograph features a sculpture called The Shoveler. One life-size wooden figure pushes a snow shovel into a pyramid of 300 snowballs. The paint on the figure suggests it has light almond-colored skin and wears a baby blue shirt, brown paints, pink beanie, and red mittens. The figure is elevated three feet up on a wooden platform painted light gray to resemble stone or concrete. In the background, a gray sky peaks through breaks in the glass-and-concrete skyline.]
a life-size push puppet sculpture in a concrete plaza with a two-story red, metal, abstract sculpture in the foreground
[Alexander Calder’s 1969 sculpture Le Grande Vitesse consumes the foreground in this photograph. The snow-shoveling push puppet sculpture rests on its plinth slightly behind and below a tall arch in the abstract sculpture, which is made of thick steel sheets bolted and welded together and painted fire engine red.]
a rear view of the entire push puppet sculpture seen in front of a large, metal, public artwork.
in this photograph, which shows the entire plinth and figure from behind, the red mittens of The Shoveler nearly disappear into the red of Calder’s Le Grande Vitesse. The rest of the life-size push puppet sculpture on a gray plinth, however, stands out from both the bright red mass of abstraction and the drab, concrete plaza, seen here in the middle of winter.
a rear view of the entire push puppet sculpture seen in front of an large, metal, public artwork
this photograph shows a cropped view of the back side of the push puppet sculpture. Its right foot (in a dark brown shoe) pushes into the white snowball pyramid. The two sausage-like segments that make up the right leg meet at a 120-degree angle. In the photograph, one can perceive a slight chromatic aberration, especially around the snowballs and beanie pom pom. This exists because the camera transitioned too quickly from the warm insides of the UHaul van to the 30-degree outsides of Calder Plaza and the lens fogged.
a bifurcated photograph of a snow-shoveling life-size push puppet sculpture made of wood on one side and a portion of a red metal sculpture on the other.
in this photograph, only a portion of Calder’s red sculpture is visible. Although slightly out of focus, a thick welding line and black scuff marks are discernible. This portion of the massive sculpture leans in from the right of the frame, occupying half the image. Matching the angle of that lean, the push puppet figure bends towards its pyramid of snowballs. The focus on the push puppet is crisp.
a 3D rendering of a push puppet toy shoveling snow
[in this 3D rendering of The Shoveler, a life-size push puppet made of wood, rope, metal, and an electric motor, the figure props one foot on the base of a pyramidal pile of white snowballs. The other foot is planted on top of the gray plinth that elevates the entire sculpture. Wearing a chartreuse shirt, brown pants, and matching purple mittens and hat, the figure inserts his shovel into the snowball pile, just above his foot. A light gray and white grid of small squares, like the "transparent" grid in Adobe software, fills the background.]
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