By Kate Hill
Staff Writer
On Sept. 21, Cazenovia community members gathered at Stone Quarry Hill Art Park (SQHAP) to watch “Eclipse” — an installation by DeRuyter-based artist Jim Ridlon Jr. — go up in flames.
The whimsical flower garden sculpture was returned to the earth as part of SQHAP’s second annual Nature’s Burning: A Fiery Fundraiser.
Ridlon created the two-story, 12-foot tall art installation from wood, cotton and chicken wire over the course of nine months.
The complicated installation process began over the summer.
Positioned on a hillside some 300 feet from “Earth Ear” — one of the park’s large, permanent installations — the completed sculpture included around 400 unique flowers of various types, colors and sizes.
Materials and assistance were provided by New Woodstock Lumber; Cazenovia Lumber; Buyea’s True Value in Cazenovia; Rick’s Rags in Canastota; and D.R. Cornue Woodworks in Nelson.
Inside, the structure featured certain spaces sized for adults and other areas accessible only to children.
Ridlon chronicled his artistic process in “A Forest of Flowers” — weekly posts on SQHAP’s Facebook feed.
Last winter, a one inch to one foot scale model of the sculpture was exhibited in the Cazenovia Public Library Gallery.
On Sept. 9, Ridlon held an informational session at the Cazenovia Library to explain his vision for the project and to invite the community to add their own natural, garden-themed creations to the sculpture.
“[I named it Eclipse because] my desire is for people to add to the sculpture, thereby obscuring, shading, surpassing, my artistic effort,” Ridlon wrote in a May post. “ . . . My ideal is that you contribute your experience of this theme so my creation becomes our creation.”
To the artist’s disappointment, the completed installation included contributions from only three individuals. The community additions included a unique flower, four hand-made butterflies and several crocheted blossoms.
Ridlon’s work on the installation continued right up until the start of the Fiery Fundraiser.
While waiting for the sun to set, the adults and children in attendance explored the installation and marveled at its intricacy.
After everyone had the chance to experience the fruits of his labor, Ridlon lit the structure and joined the crowd to watch his garden become enveloped in flames.
Ridlon, who views his artwork as an expression of himself, hopes that Eclipse inspired others to attempt the “impossible.”
“This was impossible,” he said. “I’ve never done anything like this before. [At first,] I thought ‘this is impossible, but I’m going to make this happen. I’m just going to work at it every single day, all day long . . .’ There were times when I was really worried about whether I was going to be able to [pull it off], but I did . . . There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t have it in them to do the impossible. Why aren’t we teaching our children and ourselves as adults to do that? What would the world be like if everyone did the impossible just once?”
Burning the sculpture was a critical step in Ridlon’s creative process.
The artist cited a number of different reasons for choosing to destroy all of his hard work.
“I wanted this to be burned because we burn ourselves, we burn each other, and we are burning the planet we live on, and unfortunately, we don’t even see it or feel it most of the time,” Ridlon said. “Everybody here who has kids knows how much fun they had in [there] . . . Unfortunately, we lose [that joy] when we get older. We forget about it. We don’t have it anymore. There is space in here for parents and for older people to kind of capture a little bit of that imagination again — some of the awe . . .”
By destroying the sculpture immediately upon its completion, Ridlon also hoped to highlight the importance of letting go of unnecessary attachments.
“A part of the idea was that there was no attachment to it,” he said. “We don’t ever get rid of stuff in our garages or our basements because we think that we have to have it and that we are connected to it. What we have to understand is that for one thing to change, everything has to change. We can’t hold on to selected items and then expect change to happen. We’ve got to let everything change at the same time . . . That’s what this sculpture is about. It’s about us changing. It’s about us letting go. It’s about us saying that it’s OK to not be in control of everything all of the time.”
Additionally, the artist anticipated that promising to burn the sculpture would force people to stop, look at and appreciate his creation before it disappeared forever.
“We are very short-term oriented species,” he said. “Everything is built in obsolescence. We make it and then we throw it away. We don’t really care one way or the other what happens to it. Once it’s out of our sight, we don’t even think about it anymore.”
Ridlon is the son of Jim A. Ridlon, an internationally recognized artist, educator, and former NFL player.
Last year, Ridlon Sr’s 1000-plus piece installation “Nature’s Market” was burnt to the ground during SQHAP’s first annual Fiery Fundraiser.
All proceeds from the event benefited the park.
For more information on SQHAP, visit sqhap.org.
