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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The Messenger will hold this open book filled with multilingual words of compassion, crafted from license plate letters.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
By late October, a wing is completely feathered with license plates and the head is taking shape.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The angel's wings are feathered with donated license plates.
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Photo: courtesy Joe LaMantia
Community members learn new skills as they get involved in the collaborative art project. Here, a volunteer learns to rivet under Joe LaMantia's guidance.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
By October 10, the Messenger's body, wings, and head were joined, with the license plate "feathers" ready to be affixed.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
During one of the community work days on Fourth Street, a pair of volunteers rivet metal to the sculpture's armature.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
Components of the Messenger await construction at Fairview School.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
Private property adjacent to the B-Line Trail at Allen Street will provide the setting for The Messenger.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
A composite of female and male identities, The Messenger will be suspended from the back side of the Auto Heaven building, at the level of the roof's peak.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
Joe LaMantia has been working on the preparatory drawings for The Messenger in the Fairview Elementary School Auditorium.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The Messenger's wings will be feathered with donated license plates.
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Photo: Joe La Mantia
The Messenger's metal armature under construction.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The angel's profile was cut from recycled metal.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The Messenger's armature assembled in preparation for public work sessions starting Wednesday September 26th on West Fourth Street in front of WFHB.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
A volunteer holds the red plastic heart that will glow at night from the center of the open book the Messenger will be holding.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
One volunteer jigsaws metal during a community work day for the Messenger project.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
Volunteer Jeffrey Morris displays donated license plates.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The Messenger will feature interlocking faces--one male, one female.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
Traffic signs will become components of The Messenger.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
Originally the halo was to be a bicycle rim, but the sculpture's heads became too big in proportion. Instead, LaMantia used a couple of steel rings from the Fairview Cat project that were to scale. A traffic sign will be placed inside the rim.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
One collaborator draws the design for one of the sculpture's faces.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The Angel Project has come together with the help of the very youngest members of the community.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
A volunteer rivets a metal feather to the Messenger.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The Messenger's head, body and wings came together in mid-October.
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Photo: courtesy Joe LaMantia
A young volunteer adds her imprimatur to the Messenger.
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Photo: courtesy Joe LaMantia
A school group visits the worksite.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
Bernadette Pace of the Bloomington High Flyers displays license plates she's contributed to the Angel Project.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The heart that occupies the center of the open book the figure will hold has a sensor that will allow it to glow at night.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The work site for the Angel Project is located in front of community radio station WFHB on West Fourth Street between Walnut and College.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The elements of the figure's face and head are clamped together.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The figure's female side is embellished with curls cut from metal signs.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
Jim Kirkham and his son stop by the Angel Project site to add their touch. Kirkham is the longtime coach of the "Cutters" team in the Little 500.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
The male side of the figure's head in construction.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
Street signs and other recycled materials are being used in construction of the Messenger.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
A volunteer attaches a "roller skate" cut out of metal street signs to the angel sculpture.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
By the end of the first week of November, the Messenger's face has been cleaned up in preparation for installation.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
A student at the Hoosier Hills Career Center cuts donated license plates to separate the letters to spell the words of compassion.
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Photo: Joe LaMantia
Letters cut from license plates will spell out the words of compassion in the open book to be held by the figure.
Event Information
Public Work Sessions for The Messenger
Residents are invited to collaborate in The Messenger, a sculpture slated to be installed along the B-line Trail at Allen Street in mid-November.
West Fourth Street, between Walnut and College, Bloomington
Weekdays, 9 am-5 pm
A haven for joggers, skaters, and cyclists in Bloomington will soon have its own guardian angel. The newest addition to the parade of artwork that lines the B-Line Trail is a ten-by-ten foot relief sculpture of an angel made from recycled metal.
Repurposed road signs, license plates, bicycle parts, and roller-skate wheels will combine with aluminum and galvanized steel in The Messenger, as the B-Line angel is being called. The halo, for instance, will be a bicycle wheel, superimposed on a circular, reflective yellow sign. “So when you see the head,” artist Joe LaMantia explains, “you’re going to see this glow, like the aura angels have around them.”
With its various references to recreational activity, The Messenger will be well placed along the city’s multi-use trail. But there’s a calm center in the midst of all that coming and going: the angel holds open a book, to reveal a red heart. At night, a light sensor mounted behind the heart will cause it to glow.
Words of compassion suggested by community members and spelled out in scrambled license plate letters will surround the heart on the book’s open pages. A self-described collaborative artist–whose most prominent recent project was creating the prototype for the 22 fiberglass brains decorated by area artists for Jill Bolte Taylor’s Brain Extravaganza—LaMantia is emphatic about bringing the community into the art-making process.
After LaMantia has constructed the sculpture’s armature using salvaged metal cut by students from the Hoosier Hills Career Center, volunteers can drop by public work sessions to rivet metal letters and “feathers” to the piece.
Chuck Forney, owner of the aptly named “Auto Heaven” has agreed to have the angel suspended from the side of his building overlooking the B-line trail at Allen Street. The Messenger will serve as a memorial to Jeannie Walters, a longtime realty business owner in Bloomington who passed away in 2011.
Monetary donations to complete the sculpture are being accepted through the Center for Sustainable Living. The public work sessions are slated to take place in late September on Fourth Street, between Walnut and College in downtown Bloomington.
