Artist’s
Statement on The
Making of the C.A.A. Dellschau Aeros
“The
birds laugh at man’s aviation except the owl, who is nodding
wisely, knowing from the fishes that man, who invented sea ships
can invent airships.”
(Writing from Plate #1803 of the drawings of C.A.A. Dellschau.)
After years
of fascination with the aeronautical notebooks of Charles Dellschau,
I began to wonder how these Aero Flying Machines would look as three-dimensional
pieces. I spent countless hours studying his drawings in publications,
in museum collections, and friends’ private collections attempting
to collect as much knowledge from the details of these remarkable
creations as possible. My initial fantasy was to build them life-sized,
but I soon settled for tabletop models instead.
In the spring of 2001, I started to build my first Aero, which led
to a manic building phase lasting several months. The first model
I constructed was of the Aero Goosey and from there I progressed
on to the assemblage of many of these amazing contraptions. They
are constructed of papier mache’, wooden pieces, cardboard,
wire, styrofoam and anything else which looks vaguely similar to
elements of the original drawings. Adding watercolor and tempura
aided in achieving something similar in style and feel to that of
Mr. Dellschau’s original drawings.
