Inspired by a twenty four inch long articulated iron dragon – a jizai okimono –made by armor smith Myochin Muneaki in the eighteenth century, the head, tail and neck
of our dragon measures a cumulative thirty-six feet, representing a dragon of over ninety feet in length.
To realize the dragon, we turned to
artist Ilan Ashkenazi, knowing that Ilan would bring his special sensibility to the execution of this work.Ilan
has received major public works commissions in Israel and has exhibited at Waxlander and the Darnell Fine Arts Gallery in
Santa Fe.
The dragon is
constructed of hammered copper sheet over a welded steel armature. The copper has been patinated to a light green verdigris
finish. The dragon sculpture will be unveiled in late 2012, after ongoing renovation of the Ellsworth galleries is completed.
Ilan Ashkenazi builds the dragon
Wesley Carr blows dragon's eyeballs from molten glass
