The Spirit of Aviation is a God; a nine foot winged nude  on  mechanical  
gears being  carved and recreated by  the Mississippi  Stone Guild  from a 
1930 's photograph  of which few exist .
The original was executed by Enrique Alferez in the WPA period for the  
original airport of New Orleans.and demo-ed  in the great leap forward of  
modern 1950's
We wanted to  execute this piece  local; so we rented some Studio  space 
near the Bon ton Roulette off a Magazine street .The jury is still out as  to 
whether or not this was a good choise as this den of iniquity is worse than  
the  the sin pit rudad hangs out in over in the quarter  as the Bon ton's  
floor show isn't over until 4 am (that's when  Fi Fi lowers the feathers)  
Anyway i get my mail there ;do payroll and sort out the usual beefs that  
comes between stone carvers and  loitering women   
 We have to make molds for the piece ; so first we carve the God out  of 
oiled clay ;then when that is done we segment the different parts of  the 
anatomy onto its individual block that is also of clay (Fi Fi  helps with  this 
as she claims she is an artist and the studio is  right out the back of the 
Bon tons back  swing  doors  )).
That done we will make a rubber mold of each block ;then cast it in marble  
chips and a custom mortar they supply  then hang it with a street cane  .
The problem is the original sculpture of the early 30's had a Dongus of  
considerable size (16 inches according to fi Fi) ; the Baptists  got on  to ol 
Guv  Huey Long and made the sculptor put a cone  on the  Dongus.
As artists we want to put the Dongus back on the God ;    after all how can 
you be a God without a Dongus the architects want a Dongus ;  but the city  
and the schools don't want the  Dongus .
So as we have to move forward this  project ;We have petitioned the  state 
for the Dongus ; and those in the know ; well at least those who are in  the 
know at the Bon Ton say we will get the Dongus all right 
.....;but not exactly where we  want  it  ./Py  

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