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Red Bull Inspires the Birth of Flight
Lee R. Kenny, 31, Custom House Painter
Pasadena, MD
A professional house painter, Lee Kenny also produces pencil drawings and acrylic paintings, as well as the occasional one-off Red Bull Art of Can submission. At the 2007 exhibition in Philadelphia, Kenny showed a framed map of the continental United States – fashioned, of course, from beverage cans – which was a tribute to the men and women of the country's armed forces. This time, he's again saluting brave Americans, Orville and Wilbur Wright, with a handcrafted model of their first functioning airplane. "My inspiration came from seeing the actual Wright brothers plane in the Air and Space Museum and from having visited Kitty Hawk, North Carolina," says Kenny, whose home base is the Maryland community of Pasadena, about 40 miles northeast of Washington.
The 31-year-old reports that although his entry contains only six cans, it required about 75 hours to complete. This multi-talented, multi-tasking artist (he's just penned a novel and he holds a degree in computer networking) attests that attaching the many struts was the most challenging aspect of the project. When asked about other materials incorporated in the work, Kenny thinks for a moment, then discloses a surprising mélange of components: "wire coat hangers, aluminum foil, J-B Weld, plywood, and…dirt – yes, dirt!" |