Jay's View - an artist looks at Life

A nice shot on Instagram

Jay Lagemann's sculpture Swinging Jenny has arrived at @via57west. #via #jaylagemann #sculpture #hellskitchen #nyc #newyork #architecture #construction #curbed #nycprimeshot #streetdreamsmag #icapture_nyc #ig_nycity #nycbuildings #newdevelopment #newyorkcity

A photo posted by Field Condition (@field_condition) on Oct 28, 2016 at 5:51am PDT

Swinging Jenny Installation at VIA57 in Manhattan

After the long drive from Lancaster, PA the Swinging Jenny arrives in two pieces

The top of Swinging Jenny is carefully unloaded


It was great to have two of my oldest and best friends stop by to share the moment

The bottom half is swinging from the crane

The lower half is gently being lowered so the armature tubing will fit into the Embed.

The bottom of the sculpture is in place, ready for the final adjustments. You can see the top of the embed posts. Next the grout will be poured to cement the sculpture in place.

Pouring the grout

The Swinging Jenny is welded to the Embed to hold it in place while the grout sets

The sun came out as the grout sets up and the Top Half is carefully lowered into place

The two halves are welded together.

Harry Gordon and I are feeling very good that Swinging Jenny is flying free after a successful installation. Ben Blaney is still working to weld the last of the bronze surface over the welded up stainless steel armature.

Swinging in a construction site. I look forward to seeing it with beautiful plantings around his feet.

The sculpture draws your eyes upward to the pinnacle of stunning VIA57 building designed by Bjarke Ingels for the Durst Organization.

Life goes on

Jay's Tigers accompany him to his 50th Princeton Reunion

Before heading off to Reunions I stopped to give the '66 Hitch Hiking Tiger a lift. Being a bit of a wild animal he was happy to ride outside. I had just finished sculpting his friend the B-Ball Tiger and didn't have time to put on his coat so he lay down inside the van where nobody would see him.

Waiting to get on the Ferry in Vineyard Haven

My friend Ned helped unload the B-Ball Tiger and bring him into the Reunion site.

It was fun painting the orange coat and black stripes on the B-Ball Tiger with lots of people around to talk to.

Most people didn't realize you could spin the basketball

Even the couple getting married had to get their picture with the '66 Tiger

At night the Tigers were at the center of the action.

Sometimes it is nice having the '66 Tiger as your buddy

The B-Ball Tiger and the '66 Hitch Hiking Tiger led the Class of 1966 in the P-Rade

It is a long march when you are at your 50th. But the younger classes are generous with their beer and the Tigers were thirsty

After finishing the P-Rade the '66 Tigers hung around a while for pictures.

On the way back to the 50th Reunion Site the '66 Tigers stopped off at the Princeton University Art Museum

It was a wonderful Reunion. By the time you make it to your 50th you tend to be happy to be alive and glad to see your classmates. The weather was hot but sunny and beautiful. And, of course, the P-Rade is a blast. It is wonderful to be cheered.

On the long drive home after Sunday Brunch at the Boathouse almost every time I stopped I ran into another Princetonian also returning from Reunions. On the ferry to the Vineyard the couple two cars behind me had taken a picture of their daughter, class 2011, and her fiance '13 with the '66 Hitch Hiking Tiger. So I borrowed their phone to take a picture of them with the '66 Tiger which they texted to their daughter.

I loved taking the road trip with the Tigers. They seem to bring smiles and happiness whereever they go. I guess they are just a couple of Party Animals.

Swinging Jenny is "Huge!"

For the first time I get to see the Man standing up, even if he is headless

This is the first time I have ever seen the man's body standing up. I have a 10' ceiling in my studio so I was never able to stand up the working model and see how tall it feels.

When I worked on the whole body of the figure it was in the horizontal position.

At the ART Foundry they hoisted up Jenny so I could get an idea of how it will feel. She will actually be a couple of feet higher and the arms will meet and be welded together. They couldn't get the position any better without redoing the sling and moving a lot of stuff to get the two cranes close enough together. Not worth the bother. There was too much real work to do.

There was a lot of engineering to figure out how to make the sculpture strong enough so that it is safe to have Jenny cantilevered out twenty two feet from the leaning back man. Inside the bronze casting they have to fit an armature of heavy stainless steel pipe ranging from 6" in diameter and almost 1" thick walls in the man's legs tapering down to 2.5” dia SCH80 (2.88”x0.276”) in Jenny's torso.

The amount of work they have to do to get the pipe inside the sculpture is amazing to me. First they tack weld the cast bronze sections together to create the proper shape. Not an easy job since the man was cast in 25 separate pieces and the Jenny in 19 pieces. Putting these back together to recreate the shape of the working model that I made back in my studio was no easy task. Then they have to take off the outer cast bronze sections so they can fit sections of the stainless steel armature into the sculpture and weld them together as well as to the bronze outer shell.

Welding the stainless steel armature in place. Lying on the floor are the cast bronze pieces that will be welded back over the armature.

Jenny's braids were cast separately from the head. With my guidance they tack welded them into just the right place.

We did a test of patinas. You can also get a good idea of what the texture looks like.

So which patina do you like best?

Creating a new Tiger head for the "B-Ball Tiger"

When you're working with plaster you sure as heck want to keep the wet plaster away from your hands so it won't dry them out. I've tried a lot of different gloves and have ended up using the same ones as the Martha's Vineyard Hospital. (Yes, I did take a pair to try them out first.)

You can order them from my new link here:

Haylard Health Kimberly-Clark Purple Nitrile Exam Gloves, Large, 100 Count

My idea is to put the new Tiger head on to the copy we made of the "Ball Dog"

Zack's Ball Dog having a Hollywood New Year's Eve

So that means we need to order another basket ball from the link below:

My new method of enlargement is to take pictures with my IPhone and then enlarge them with a digital projector.

A Wonderful summer day

July 5, 2015

I got a call this morning that Allen had some sheep ready for me to pick up. Dashiell came along to help and to learn the ropes.

Dash was very impressed with Allen's no nonsense handing of the sheep

The sheep were happy to come live in Chilmark at the Wild Island Sculpture Garden for the summer

El tryed to hand feed the sheep, but they don't trust us yet

The clap pit is like quick sand, but fortunately not very deep

A new sculpture - one of my Sentinel Series.

Hard to Imagine a finer place for sculpture

After a delicious family dinner cooked by Marianne we all watched the USA Women win the World Cup. Way to go ladies!

Low Tide at Squibby

Who is this Guy?

About Me

Jay: I have always liked making things. I fell in love with art when I spent my 18th summer travelling around Europe. At Princeton I took all the art courses available and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in mathematics in 1966. Disillusioned by the Vietnam War, I returned to travelling after getting my Ph.D. in Mathematical Logic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I sailed across the North and South Atlantic and wrote an unpublished book before working my way on to the special effects crew for the movie JAWS 2. There I learned the skills to make just about anything. That came in handy because one day, sitting in the Sculpture Park at the Hirshorn Museum, I had a vision of creating the Wild Island Sculpture Park on my land in Chilmark. In 1994 I created the monumental sculpture, the Swordfish Harpooner, in Menemsha for the Chilmark Tricentennial. I work with a variety of materials because I view almost everything as sculpture from the placement of driftwood on the beach to the building of my own house and studios. I have a unique way of seeing things and in 1997 I started making my own public access TV show: Jay's View.