(no subject)
So many choices to make. Touchdown. Someone wants to buy him. Should I sell him? Or should I go through the paperwork and find a way of making him into a permenant member of the Risley Community? Will he be destroyed? Should he come home with me and become a lawn ornament? I have so many conflicting points of view/influences on me that it is becoming difficult for me to decide what action to take. I still have time to decide though. Examples of peer pressure influence include my parents (who say: SELL IT!) But at the same time, my dad (who is a sales man/appraiser) does not think I should at least sell him for the material cost it took me to make it, let alone make a profit from it. My mother also thinks I should sell it, but get whatever I can for it. Then my thesis TA said sell it, and suggested a logical estimate for it. Then when I talk about it in the Risley Library with the other Risley students, they sound disappointed at the prospect of me selling it, which makes me feel guilty. I also feel sad at the thought of the bear sculpture that took me so long to plan and build leave his home Risley. However the person who is interested in him is a staff member of Cornell, so in a way the sculpture would still be within the Cornell community, although remotely. Ultimately my only concern is finding my bear sculpture a good home where I know he will be able to live and be surrounded by people who love and want to care for him. I know he is just a sculpture, and fragile, but I think of him more as a pet or a big black bear friend. Right now I have no idea what to do. I have found out a way to make him a permenant part of the Risley community. I can propose to Risley Kommittee to have him registered as a building mural, so that he would be protected and then they would vote on it. The RHD is open to keeping him. So many options. I know that Touchdown will find a good home.
Then I think about which choice will be the right one. Where will he live the longest and happiest? If I sell him, he will most likely wind up outside in someone's backyard where he will be exposed to harsh Ithaca weather. Eventually he would either rot from all the exposure to rain/moisture, or collapse from the weight of too much snow, or become a home for some sort of burrowing/nesting creature, etc.
If Touchdown becomes a permenant part of Risley students will not have the right to vandalise him as they have recently been doing. But I still fear that they will anyway. Even though I designed him to be effemeral (fall apart) for the argument of my thesis, my eternal hope is that he be preserved and respected.
If I do not sell him or if he cannot stay a part of Risley and he has to come home with me, my parents will most likely take him to a dump where he will either be recycled as a large piece of newspaper and tape or compacted. Or if my parents are feeling generous, they might truck him home and make him a lawn ornament, where he would still risk suffering water and snow damage.
Today I discovered someone has cut off one of his fangs, and peeled off one of his eyes. Are the students of Risley trying to turn him into a pirate? I've seen lots of things done to Touchdown. Mostly people just do innocent things to him which I don't mind and quite enjoy such as placing things in his mouth or nose or on his head. For example I've seen half eatten cookies, money, chemistry molecule balls, candy, music books, newspapers, and cigarrettes in his mouth. Someone once stole his sign and then returned it. People have taped signs to him. I like all this. I just don't like it when people manipulate him in such a way that requires me to repair him, because in my mind that is vandalism. I do not feel like sending out an angry email to the Risley Listserve about this. I knew this stuff would happen to him. He is an effemeral piece, designed to fall apart, because I failed in trying to coat him in a water proof/weather proof mortar coating.
Then I think about which choice will be the right one. Where will he live the longest and happiest? If I sell him, he will most likely wind up outside in someone's backyard where he will be exposed to harsh Ithaca weather. Eventually he would either rot from all the exposure to rain/moisture, or collapse from the weight of too much snow, or become a home for some sort of burrowing/nesting creature, etc.
If Touchdown becomes a permenant part of Risley students will not have the right to vandalise him as they have recently been doing. But I still fear that they will anyway. Even though I designed him to be effemeral (fall apart) for the argument of my thesis, my eternal hope is that he be preserved and respected.
If I do not sell him or if he cannot stay a part of Risley and he has to come home with me, my parents will most likely take him to a dump where he will either be recycled as a large piece of newspaper and tape or compacted. Or if my parents are feeling generous, they might truck him home and make him a lawn ornament, where he would still risk suffering water and snow damage.
Today I discovered someone has cut off one of his fangs, and peeled off one of his eyes. Are the students of Risley trying to turn him into a pirate? I've seen lots of things done to Touchdown. Mostly people just do innocent things to him which I don't mind and quite enjoy such as placing things in his mouth or nose or on his head. For example I've seen half eatten cookies, money, chemistry molecule balls, candy, music books, newspapers, and cigarrettes in his mouth. Someone once stole his sign and then returned it. People have taped signs to him. I like all this. I just don't like it when people manipulate him in such a way that requires me to repair him, because in my mind that is vandalism. I do not feel like sending out an angry email to the Risley Listserve about this. I knew this stuff would happen to him. He is an effemeral piece, designed to fall apart, because I failed in trying to coat him in a water proof/weather proof mortar coating.