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Photo Pru Sowers
Kinetic sculptor Candice Crawford’s latest piece is an interactive replica of the old Railroad Wharf in Provincetown’s harbor, complete with a moving train that ran out on the wharf and schooners docked to unload their catch. |
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Photo Pru Sowers
This sculpture by Candice Crawford has created a look at Provincetown’s harbor during its fishing heyday, complete with wheels visitors can turn to interact with the artwork. |
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Interactive sculpture brings old fishing harbor to life
Banner Daily Update posted Thursday, April 19
By Pru Sowers
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN – Sculptor Candice Crawford likes to touch things. Driftwood, paintings hanging in museums, knives she uses to carve the boats and fishes that populate her latest sculpture, a replica of the old Railroad Wharf in Provincetown.
People can barely resist touching the sculptures she makes and that’s a good thing because it is meant to be touched, moved, shifted and enjoyed.
“I can’t fully experience something unless I can touch it,” Crawford said the other day, bending over to turn the carved wooden wheels that make different parts of her sculpture move: a wooden schooner bobs next to the wharf, fish swim nearby, a seal pops up in another corner.
The miniature moving scale of the wharf and the surrounding town, complete with the Pilgrim Monument, is located in the Pier Gallery shanty, a few shanties down from the Whydah Sealab Learning Center at the end of MacMillan Pier. The sculpture will be available for viewing until April 30, Wednesdays through Sundays, from noon to 4 p.m.
Visitors braving the chilly spring winds on the pier are able to stand on the same wharf while operating a miniature version depicting fishing boats and other daily activities common to the early 1930s. Small hand cranks make the boats rock and fish swim. An actual scale model train makes its way up and down one side of the artwork.
In addition, the exhibit also has sound recordings of Frances Raymond, one of the “Fishermen’s Wives” portrayed in giant photos on the wall of the next-door Fisherman’s Wharf. Raymond, age 102, tells stories about her life growing up in Provincetown and adds a very real element to the sculpture.
And as visitors gaze at the wooden Pilgrim Monument portrayed in the sculpture, they can see the real thing behind it through the window.
“You can stand here and look out the window and see some of the same things. You can be in the past and present at the same time,” Crawford said.
Crawford has created whimsical kinetic sculptures before, where the viewer becomes an essential part of the piece. Made from tree branches and driftwood, Crawford carves, cuts, drills and assembles her artwork, creating miniature environments. The Railroad Wharf sculpture is her first to use audio recordings.
Railroad Wharf was made possible by a grant from the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod.
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Apr 19th, 2007