Never Moving Walkway
I was commissioned by the Scott Family Amazeum children's museum in Bentonville, Arkansas to create an automaton (a self-operating sculptural machine) for their new Wonderwing play and discovery area at Northwest Arkansas National Airport (XNA).
The sculpture is sited at the former location of recently removed moving walkway. This questionably practical walkway was all of 50-feet long and ran through a short jog in the airport connecting the TSA checkpoint and the modest main terminal, and was, in fact, the only moving walkway in the state of Arkansas until recently. This distinction became the subject of a Facebook fan page that was embraced by local creatives and goofballs to "check in" at the Only Moving Walkway in the State of Arkansas when flying in and out of Northwest Arkansas. Many expressed their sadness (including me) when the walkway was slated for removal to accommodate airport expansion and renovations.
My goals for the automaton were to create a figure with a lifelike, fully-articulated walking motion pulling a suitcase with "the wobbles," to include a miniature homage to the moving walkway, to make all of the clockwork mechanisms visible, and to utilize parts and components scavenged from the original moving walkway, which I'd been given access to.
In the final product those parts are visible as the blue rubber wheel trucks in the "treadmill" portion of the sculpture, which formed a long chain to support the tread plates in the original walkway, and the cladding on the front of the piece, which utilizes those original tread plates.