Proposal: Craft Continuity Vehicle: a fine wood automobile sculpture to link manufacturing history t

Through a collaborative design process between myself and Will McGown, a woodworker in the Edge neighborhood, we will build a life-sized sculpture of a 1955 Cadillac using a combination of original auto-body parts and hand-crafted wood joinery. The resultant sculpture will include a bench seat and a radio that will play alternately songs recorded in the neighborhood and excerpts of interviews with local craftspeople. This sculpture will allow visitors to the neighborhood to sit and contemplate fine wood-working while hearing music from the neighborhood and testimonials of craftspeople who have worked or continue to work in the area.

Research into the neighborhood taught me of the prevalence of auto-dealerships in the Edge in the first half of the twentieth century. While initial research showed a graveyard of shuttered businesses, defunct manufacturing plants and vacant industrial spaces, I was heartened to continually discover the emergence of new crafts rising up in the spaces, vibrant new traditions of the hand-made and the artistic. This project would merge together three narratives of the neighborhood, the history of cars in the neighborhood (and Memphis); the history of Memphis music and the emergence of a community of fine-craftsmen making world-class creations.