Plastic Art

Reporter: Jessica Coughlin

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Script

JESSICA COUGHLIN: Walking into my friend's backyard in Providence, Rhode Island last winter I was stopped in my tracks by a tree that seemed to be blossoming with bright flowers of pink, yellow, and green even in the snow and ice of February."What is that?" I asked, gazing up at the branches laden with bulbous rainbow shapes.

That tree was filled with Ben Phipps's plastic. These sculptures are made out of the same material used for science goggles one might wear in a high school chemistry lab. Phipps is an optical engineer at a protective eyewear factory in Rhode Island, extruding molton plastic to create optical filters. I spoke with him from his home in Providence, Rhode Island.

BEN PHIPPS: You have a huge spagehetti machine but instead of spaghetti, you are producing molton colorful plastic. Once you start creating florecent colored plastic, its pretty obvious that there is an ability to have this turn into an artistic medium.

JC: Phipps is an optical engineer at a protective eyewear factory in Rhode Island, extruding molton plastic to create optical filters. Phipps was horrified at the amount of non-recycleble plastic that was being produced during experiments for product development at the goggle factory.

BP: Obviously being someone who continually recycles and believes in the three Rs. Recycle, Reduce, Reuse, that was my goal for any job I take.

JC: To understand the sculpture, you have to feel the tiny grooves, bumps, and bubbles coursing through the plastic, you have to hold it up to sunlight to see the optically engineered colors glow from within, and you have to ask where it came from.

BP: The forms are oganic in how far I let them droop and hang. Some people say they're very phallic. I had an ex girlfriend that called them the testicular jungle because I had about fifty of these pieces just hanging around the kitchen, very drooping and bulbous so that was funny."

JC: Phipps brings science and sculpture together as both an engineer and an artist.

BP: The material is designed to look exactly like glass. I can handle it for short periods of time before its hardened and then you can build on to that, just the way that a glass sculptor would work, its pretty much the same process as far as the sculpting goes.

Theres a four foot metal screw, inside a heated barrel thats heated in various zones. And the plastic passes on the outside of the screw and gets pushed down the barrel into a nozzel. When it comes out as spaghetti, then you put in the water bath and you re pelletize it. So you have a long water bath and a pelletizer which is just a motor with blades on the end that chops up the spaghetti string into little pellets that then can be placed into injection molding.

JC: The most striking part of Phipp's artwork is the brilliant rainbow hues that color the plastic sculptures.

BP: Its really about filtering light and absorbing light in the pieces which is really the science behind the whole process and why they are being created. Its really the essence of every color that you have. JC: As the sculptures are essentially optical filters, their full brilliance can only be observed in sunlight. This explains why Phipps prefers to hang his artwork outside, dangling them from doorways and especially the branches of trees.

BP: My father had this big apricot tree in his backyard and that is where it started, just hanging in his tree. The idea of an installation piece is to create an emotion or a feeling in your viewer, thats what i wanted. Thats what ive always wanted in my art. AMBIENT NOISE: Outdoors

BP: On a damp, overcast autumn afternoon, Ben Phipps is swinging with the ease of a chimpanzee from the branches of a tree. MEGHAN DONAHUE: "That looks awesome!"

JC: That's Meghan Donahue, Phipp's best friend.

MD: Looks good!

JC: I came along to help them construct Phipp's first public installation piece. He has chosen a tree with golden foliage on the waterfront in the heart of Providence.

BP: You guys have to tie string and I'll climb up.

MD: D we have all the supplies?

SOUND FX: Bag opening sounds, rustling.

JC: We tied clear fishing line to glass-like ropes of golden spaghetti, bulbous green mushrooms, and disks of fuscia, blue and orange. Phipps scrambled to catch the plastic as it was tossed, weaving between the branches with the ease of a nimble rock climber. Once hung, the disks spun rapidly in the wind and glittered between the leaves.

MD: The lore of this project is that he really likes climbing trees.

BP: See how they spin? It's looking pretty good

JC: A couple of hours later the tree was sparking with rainbow colors, all dancing in the wind. Curious pedestrians running weekend errands, visiting parents of college students, and even a couple skateboarders all stopped to admire our addition to the fall foliage. Looking up at the tree in wonder, they each asked in turn "what is that?". Ben Phipps taught me that the world can be an incredibly beautiful place when viewed through rose colored plastic.

Ben Phipps taught me that world can actually be an incredibly beautiful place when viewed through rose-colored plastic.

For Intern Edition, I'm Jessica Achbar Coughlin.

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