Unrecoverable.

March 5, 2007 7:03 PM

John Waddell went to show his friends his latest masterpiece "The Gathering" only to find it stolen. Bronze statues can take Waddell 10 years to create and the piece was worth $384,000. The statues which made up the piece weighed between 750 lb - 1500 lb which could make the thieves up to $32,000 from the scrap metal, a minor fraction of their real worth. It is not the first time thieves have used art for scrap metal.
posted by Count (27 comments total)

"REAL WORTH"
posted by koeselitz at 7:13 PM on March 5, 2007

Really, though, that sucks.
posted by koeselitz at 7:15 PM on March 5, 2007

"REAL WORTH"
posted by koeselitz at 7:13 PM PST on March 5

In my Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide, it's worth at least $380,000 (mint). Also, it only sucks if it wasn't "stolen" by the artist himself or conspirators. Also, this is good publicity for him. Also, it's even better if the piece is "found". Also, I'm a bit cynical.
posted by billysumday at 7:22 PM on March 5, 2007

Thieves are stealing kid's slides from area parks to sell for scrap. The depths of the lowness they will stoop to is pretty unbelievable.

This is pretty lame though. I wonder if he'd feel better knowing it wasn't going to get melted down for scrap and someone stole it because they just had to have it.
posted by fenriq at 7:24 PM on March 5, 2007

Hell, I'd feel better knowing it wasn't going to get melted down for scrap and someone stole it because they just had to have it.
posted by Richard Daly at 7:35 PM on March 5, 2007

No carmensandiego tag?
posted by Hicksu at 7:35 PM on March 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've got a mental image of Bubbles making off across the desert with those stacked up in a giant rusty shopping cart.
posted by The Straightener at 7:38 PM on March 5, 2007 [2 favorites]

I originally heard this story on CBC radio (Canada) while driving home and they had an interview with him. He said exactly that, that he would be feel much better if the thieves stole the sculptures simply because they were so inspired by them that they had to have them. He seemed more distraught that they were likely going to be melted, than he did about their actual loss. He also mentioned that he is 86 years old, and that it was a shame that he lost pieces that were created during what he felt was his most important growth.
posted by Count at 7:39 PM on March 5, 2007

It's hideous. We can hope they'll make something beautiful and useful out of the bronze - perhaps one of those nice old timey doorknobs.
posted by Sukiari at 7:40 PM on March 5, 2007

Thieves are stealing kid's slides from area parks to sell for scrap. The depths of the lowness they will stoop to is pretty unbelievable.

I'll go you one worse: in Louisiana, people are stealing the bronze and copper plaques off of soldiers' graves. I wouldn't want to be caught doing that down here.
posted by ColdChef at 7:48 PM on March 5, 2007

Here in Hawaii, copper theft has been big news lately.
posted by Joey Michaels at 8:20 PM on March 5, 2007

Kinda like how the funeral flowerpots that are stolen are worth "THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS"--but only because the funerary companies refuse to sell them for less. This art probably cost the guy a few thousand to make, and probably lot of his heart and soul, but I doubt most people with 400k to spare would be running to buy it.
posted by Citizen Premier at 8:22 PM on March 5, 2007

I like the stories where the bad guys are stealing copper wire from power transmission stations. Only the current suddenly goes all live on their asses and you can see their bones. And there's a muted horn playing in the final frames going "wah wah wah waaaaaaah"

Not these kind of stories.
posted by hal9k at 8:29 PM on March 5, 2007

Thieves are stealing kid's slides from area parks to sell for scrap. The depths of the lowness they will stoop to is pretty unbelievable.

I'll go you one worse: in Louisiana, people are stealing the bronze and copper plaques off of soldiers' graves. I wouldn't want to be caught doing that down here.

ColdChef has probably heard of the houses recently rehabbed post-Katrina, just about ready for the owner to move in and restart their lives, when these dimwits up and steal all the new copper water pipe and electrical wiring.
posted by hal9k at 8:39 PM on March 5, 2007

I remember when hearing about scrap metal thieves was evidence of the thorough societal collapse that followed the breakup of the USSR.

You'd think that you could leave a quarter of a million dollars in bronze parked in your backyard in America. But no....

This is despicable.
posted by dhartung at 8:45 PM on March 5, 2007

ColdChef has probably heard of the houses recently rehabbed post-Katrina, just about ready for the owner to move in and restart their lives, when these dimwits up and steal all the new copper water pipe and electrical wiring.

I hadn't heard about that, but I can't say that it surprises me.
posted by ColdChef at 8:55 PM on March 5, 2007

This art probably cost the guy a few thousand to make, and probably lot of his heart and soul, but I doubt most people with 400k to spare would be running to buy it.

Ummm...No. If you read the initial post, not even the article, but the initial post, there's about $32,000 of metal in it. (I'm ignoring quibbles about fluctuating metal prices, interest, what-have-you).

Starting with the initial modeled sculpts, which would probably have been in oil clay or earth clay, Wadell would have had to make molds of the clay sculptures, and then make wax castings using the molds. He's probably got some apprentices around, since he likes to teach and it helps to have another set of hands when you're moving 100 pounds of clay, plaster, or liquid wax around. Then he has to take the waxes to the art bronze foundry.

Then Wadell or the foundry owner attaches sprues and gates, applies a ceramic shell coating, fires that object to burn out the wax and heat up the ceramic shell, heat up bronze ingots and scrap in a crucible, pour that into the shell.

Then Wadell spends a few weeks cleaning up the sculptures and applying patinas. Then he pays some riggers to take it out to the site. At the site, there are some foundations (which weren't free) and he (with assistants) installs the sculptures.

It's not exactly cheap to do all this. Tools and materials aren't free, and artists, apprentices, workers, foundry owners, and riggers like to eat. (Especially riggers.)

All that, and he's doing it for the love of the art, really. He's got to stay on top of these details, but he's not in it for the money. Otherwise he'd be spending all his time making funeral flowerpots.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:15 PM on March 5, 2007

ColdChef, wow! Okay, you win. Who would buy those for scrap?
posted by fenriq at 9:21 PM on March 5, 2007

I'm at a loss that people shrug and simply total up the cost of the metal. The pixels most of us push around have a scrap value of exactly zero.
posted by maxwelton at 9:28 PM on March 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Who would buy those for scrap?
Assholes, apparently. FWIW, these are the kind of grave markers I'm talking about.
posted by ColdChef at 9:32 PM on March 5, 2007

Yeah, Detroit's had a run of scrap theiving for years. They caught a husband and wife duo swiping copper from lamposts that nets about $3 as scrap, but cost the city about $2k a pop in materials and installation. And in bad neighborhoods, you'll see people brazenly stripping siding from homes.
posted by klangklangston at 9:39 PM on March 5, 2007

People live in Detroit? I thought it was reaver territory!
posted by Sukiari at 11:04 PM on March 5, 2007 [2 favorites]

Wow, this really sucks for Waddell. I proposed to my wife in the Phoenix Herberger Theater, and the beauty of the Waddell sculptures outside was a factor in my choice of venue.
posted by smeger at 11:55 PM on March 5, 2007

Eastern Europe wastes so much effort trying to be like America when all it has to do is wait for America to become Eastern Europe.

If I put something out in the middle of nowhere that I knew thieves could cart away and sell for thousands of dollars, I would put some kind of alarm on it. He realizes that now, but too late: "Remaining sculptures in the series have been relocated next to the sculptor's house. A locked gate will soon surround the property."
posted by pracowity at 12:18 AM on March 6, 2007

Bastards! Stealing from somebody with the same last name as me. Grrr! Something similar happened recently enough in Minneapolis - I remember Lileks writing about how the guys got busted when they tried selling the chopped up statues to a scrap metal dealer.
posted by antifuse at 4:47 AM on March 6, 2007

And let me tell you... that thing was hard to fit into my Miata.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:03 PM on March 6, 2007

Here in South Africa, they steal the power lines after they're installed.
posted by Goofyy at 1:16 AM on March 7, 2007