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[Lynda Benglis: "The Wave of the World"]

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[SOUND OF CICADAS]

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I feel that all artists are in a kind of situation

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that patterns their early memories.

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I was born in Louisiana--

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Lake Charles, Louisiana.

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I remember taking little sticks and little mossy forms

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and somebody told me that you could make a boat that way,

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with a leaf, and a stick, and a mossy form.

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So I began playing with what was on the ground a lot--

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just thinking about nature.

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I think all children do that.

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Later, I would travel the bayous in the motorboat.

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Louisiana had a whole area of waterways

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that then lead to the Gulf.

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So there were all kinds of channels and waterways,

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and I knew them.

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I really preferred being on the water in that way

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and discovering all these different things--

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boats that had sunken many years ago.

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[SOUND OF RAIN DROPS HITTING WOODEN BOARDS]

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[Queens, New York]

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[SOUND OF METAL CHAINS CLANKING]

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[Bob Spring, Modern Art Foundry]

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[BOB SPRING] This is a little bit like,

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"Welcome back, Lynda."

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Lynda made the model for this--

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this piece--

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in this room.

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[SOUNDS OF POWER TOOLS AGAINST METAL]

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[BENGLIS] I was so grateful.

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I thought it could have been lost at sea;

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I didn't know where it was,

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and then I saw it being stored in Louisiana.

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Now, those people that know it and know the history

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can see the fountain!

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It was a World's Fair contest in New Orleans;

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it was the last World's Fair in 1984.

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So I entered my idea, which was a wave.

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I've always been intrigued by waves--

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not the large ones that you see at Acapulco and the Pacific,

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you know where they roll in and they could....

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But I was always intrigued by these little Gulf waves

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because that's the first that I saw.

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I think it was maybe in the Seventies,

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I had the idea of doing fountains.

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Because really, what I was doing with the urethane

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was a frozen kind of liquid form,

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and I thought that that liquid form could be so beautifully extended with water.

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I had done waves off the wall.

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For this, I wanted to do a free-standing one.

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I did this seventeen-and-a-half foot cantilever in bronze

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of the idea of this liquid bronze umbrella-ing out and having water.

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[BOB SPRING] And she constructed the model for this out of foam.

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[BENGLIS] One-to-one ratio, six-pound density polyurethane foam.

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I was using a wire structure underneath,

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and in this case, I had the idea of the weather balloon.

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[BOB SPRING] So she had underneath here the original shape of this

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and then covered with plastic.

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And then she started applying the foam

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and letting it run.

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And the whole room had to all be sealed off,

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and she was in a...

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well, today you would almost call it a space suit,

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because the fumes from this were a little bit toxic.

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And so we had to bring fresh air in from outside--

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it went through a tube into her little uniform.

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After she was finished with the model,

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we made the molds on it.

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And we made the casting.

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Inside is an arrangement of pipes,

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water chambers, and everything else.

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And it's very nice to have it back.

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And we'll take care of it for her,

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and everything else.

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[JEFFREY SPRING] I mean, this piece was in a storage area

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for years after the World's Fair,

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so it's aged.

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[Jeffrey Spring, Modern Art Foundry]

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The surface needs to be restored--or re-colored--

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to her satisfaction.

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As long as the water works right, that's what really is left.

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--[BENGLIS] Okay, so no tooling, right?

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--Nothing?

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--[MAN] We just cut the gates...

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--[BENGLIS] Yeah, yeah...

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--[MAN] ...and give a finish on the surface.

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--[BENGLIS] Good. Okay, let's have the water.

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[SOUND OF WATER SPLASHING AGAINST CONCRETE]

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[BENGLIS] I was very excited to find that it was still in existence.

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[Kenner, Louisiana]

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It was in a sort of heap of things out in the open,

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and forgotten about--

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totally forgotten about.

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I had thought the hurricane might have cast it away

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and it was some anchor somewhere.

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[SOUND OF WATER SPLASHING IN FOUNTAIN]

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[New Orleans, Louisiana]

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[On label: Lynda Benglis; American, born 1941;[br]"The Wave of the World," 1983–1984; Bronze;[br]On loan from City of Kenner;[br]Underwritten by The Helis Foundation]

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I think of my work as being very classical.

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Essentially, I think I repeat ideas of nature,

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and I process them and interpret them.

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I realize that what we learn to do

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is repress our titillations

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or our feelings about what we see

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and we call it 'taste'.

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What is the way we see?

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What do we respond to without creating a taste

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that's agreeable to everyone?

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I'm not trying to satisfy anyone.

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I really make things because I'm curious--

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that's the reason.

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I don't think of shows,

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I don't think of anything other than,

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"It's exciting for me to feel that same excitement"

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"that I felt as a kid."