THE LAMPLIGHTER

Public Art Project
October 2011
Seattle, WA

Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) is a novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry about a little boy who lives on an asteroid with one rose and three volcanoes that come up to his knees, one of which is extinct. When The Little Prince decides he is unhappy, he sets off to learn about life and visits seven nearby planets, the last of which is Earth. On his travels, he meets The Lamplighter, a man under orders to extinguish his lamp at daybreak and light it at dusk. The Lamplighter explains how his task, once useful, has become absurd over time as his planet began spinning more and more quickly. Since a new day occurs every minute now, the lamplighter is so busy he hasn't a moment to sleep. Is not The Lamplighter a metaphor for our own condition? We are all so busy doing things we think are of consequence that we miss the smaller, simpler things that make up the truly significant stuff (seeing the stars, sharing a sunrise, listening to a friend, dancing, putting my hands in the earth, talking to the elephants). The Little Prince is a fable about how money, ego and power close our hearts and turn into dimwitted adults.

PERFORMANCE
Performance artist A K Mimi Allin rolls through the Seattle night with a 10' rolling lantern and spinning, papier-mâché planetoid (conceived of and constructed by inventor/designer Clinton Lee Bliss), illuminating and extinguishing her lamp once per minute. When you see her wink of “good night” and blink of “good morning," think to the things of consequence in your life, then come and commemorate someone who believed in you when you a child by painting a golden star on her lamppost. By mid-October, the entire lantern be covered with golden stars and made bright by the light of our belief in one another, and at last the lamplighter will be able to put down her work and take a much needed rest.

SCHEDULE OF APPEARANCES

• Wallingford Artwalk - 5 October
• Pioneer SquareArtwalk - 6 October
• Fremont Artwalk - 7 October
• Capital Hill Artwalk - 11 October
• West Seattle Artwalk - 13 October
• Greenwood-Phinney Artwalk -14 October

The Lamplighter will light & extinguished her lamp 1,440 times over the next 2 weeks and then install it at the Phinney Center Gallery in Greenwood.

THANK YOU
This project received a CityArtist grant from the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. Thank you for that!! Cosmic thanks go out to inventor/designer Clinton Lee Bliss for his work on my whimsical lantern. Thanks also go out to the talented & beautiful Mylinda Sneed & her brilliant son Beckett Arnold for their support. Thanks indeed to The Fremont Arts Council for use of The Powerhouse & to Christopher Peragine for his time & expressive drawings. Thanks unending to all those who support & enjoy public art throughout the universe.