used with permission from Gregory Gulik

George Rickey is one of my favorite artists. George Rickey was born June 6, 1907 and passed away on July 17, 2002 at the age of 95. He was originally a painter who turned his attention to kinetic sculpture in 1950 which in turn became his life passion. In 1964, his kinetic work he created Two Lines Temporal I. With this creation, Mr. Rickey was able to give up teaching in 1966 and devote his time to creating more wonderful works of art. Mr. Rickey was able to fabricate sculptures that involved in moving metal pieces that reacted to the slightest air currents. These parts were sometimes enormous weighing several thousand pounds or more.

Although depending upon air currents for its motion, Rickey’s Two Lines – Temporal I is basically a machine made of two 35 foot stainless steel blades balanced on knife edge fulcrums. The subject matter is about nature. “Despite its mechanical character, this work belongs in nature. Otherwise the typical poetry of its gentle swaying tends to be reduced to a metronome.” “Two lines- Temporal I suggests something of the skeletal structure and vertical stretch of New York’s buildings as well as something of the sway of the skyscrapers as we see them against the sky” (Humanities 143).

See www.christonecipher-friends.blogspot.com