Tristin Lowe

Posted on May 4, 2009 - by pokate

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This weekend I was down in Baltimore for my brother’s fiance’s bridal showers. I met my mom on the train from New York to Baltimore as she was down in Philadephia to see various art exhibits with my father and uncle and aunt who were in from San Francisco. She immediately started showing me photos from the new exhibit at the Fabric Workshop and Museum featuring Tristin Lowe and his Mocha Dick installation/sculpture.

The whole whale is above – all 52 feet of it – with people in the shot for scale [Thanks to Sokref1's Flickr for these pics]. The whole thing is felted to look like an albino sperm whale, with an inflated bladder within the structure and with felted barnacles and scars on the exterior for effect. Details are below.

The entire piece, from what I understand, zips together and can be zipped apart, folded up and transported.

The eye…

Zipper and scar close up above. Perhaps the most interesting piece of this creation aside from the work that went into it is that it’s a replica of the whale that terrorized whaling vessels, often sinking smaller ones, near Mocha Island in the South Pacific in the 19th century. This was a source of inspiration for Melville when he wrote, “Moby Dick.”

Another shot of the front of the whale.

And a terrific close up of the technique — the last two are thanks to Libby Rosof’s Flickr.