Sandy Sorlien
Marbelle
2020, glass marbles, silicone caulk, fiberglass, wood, approx. 7'h x 5'w x 4'd
Location; East Ferry gardens, intersection of Conanicus & Narragansett Ave. GPS: 41.49606, -71.36712
Guess how many marbles on Marbelle- click here
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With thanks to the Moon Marble Company and Tish Hewins for their timely donations of beautiful marbles, and to Jason Vieira for the sturdy pedestal.
Artist’s Statement
I collect marbles. But I’ve also collected thousands of American houses, hundreds of American Main Streets, and scores of Pennsylvania canal locks. They could not be brought home to keep and share, but photographs could. So for me, despite a long career in photography, when delighted by Art Cars at the American Visionary Art Museum, it made perfect sense to think about sticking marbles on a car. And now on a boat. Marbelle, which means “Beautiful Sea” in addition to the pun, was conceived for the Jamestown Outdoor Arts Experience. The dazzling skin of marbles celebrates the common dinghy. The rowboat represents our island heritage, our access to fishing and exploring, our conveyance to other vessels grand and humble, and our playful childhood. Marbelle honors the spirit of Jamestown’s fantastic annual Fool’s Rules Regatta, but differs by providing a durable jeweled nautical object instead of one that collapses (by design) after three hours. Art Cars and other ambitious pieces made of collections are often assembled by self-taught outside artists. Marbelle can inspire anyone to make public or backyard art with any materials they like. I hope she will bring together Jamestown’s community of sophisticated art professionals, muscle/vintage car lovers, and countless everyday hobbyists, including children. Of course Jamestown also has a strong generational community; many family names repeat over the centuries. The name Marbelle was inspired by my grandfather’s sailboat Marbella. As youngsters, we rowed a dinghy much like this one to get to Marbella and go for a sail on Narragansett Bay.
Biography
Sandy Sorlien is a photographer, writer, teacher, and rower from Philadelphia. She taught photography in the 1990s and early 2000s at the University of the Arts, Moore College of Art & Design, the University of Pennsylvania, and other colleges. During that period she received three Individual Artist Fellowships in Photography from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. For the past seven years, Sandy has been an environmental educator and researcher with the Fairmount Water Works of the Philadelphia Water Department. Her current photographic series is titled Inland: The Abandoned Canals of the Schuylkill Navigation. Some time ago, after seeing Art Cars at the American Visionary Art Museum, Sandy was inspired to cover a 1964 Volvo 544 with marbles. (Marbile rusted before she could be entered in Art Car parades.) In related sphere-collecting action, Sandy used reclaimed Schuylkill River balls (soccer balls, wiffle balls, etc.) to create models of water molecules. This installation, Rescue H2O, was selected for the 2014 Art in the Open in Philadelphia and won an Awesome Foundation micro-grant. Sandy’s newest public art piece, Marbelle, is a rowboat covered with marbles. She has collected marbles since 1980, and knows which ones NOT to stick permanently to a car or boat. Sandy spent all 66 of her summers in Jamestown and now lives there year-round.
See Sandy’s youtube videos on her process: