Where others see junk, Jimmy Descant sees rocketships.
Descant saw his first rocketship 20 years ago at a flea market in his hometown of New Orleans in the canister of a vintage Kenmore vacuum cleaner.
It was then that Descant, who had been working as a band roadie, became “a full-time sculptor.”
“I just started building wild creations,” he said, adding that he was “all self-taught.”
One of those creations made its way to Manhattan Beach last July as part of the city’s Sculpture Garden Program after Descant saw an application online. The sculpture, titled “Reverse Prometheus,” is slated to be in its spot in front of the Manhattan Beach Art Center on Manhattan Beach Boulevard until this July. Descant hopes to sell it to the city or another local buyer, but if it’s not bought in time, it will travel north to Yountville, California for a two-year loan to that city. Martin Betz, Manhattan Beach’s cultural arts manager, said that the city didn’t have any plans to buy the $25,000 sculpture.
Descant, whose work uses found objects, said it showed his “appreciation for things manufactured during the American Golden Age from the twenties to the sixties.”
“They were built to last, good quality,” he said. “They were meant to last a couple hundred years.”
“I have an appreciation for things made by anonymous craftsmen. They never got to sign their work. The draftsmen to the guys who poured the metal, making the most beautiful things for us.”
The artist calls himself a “Severe Reconstructivist.”
“I take everything I find at thrift stores and flea markets and deconstruct it and reconstruct it as I see it,” he said. “I try to keep as much as possible out of the landfill.”
The body of the rocket, which is aimed toward the sky, is an old water tank covered in aluminum diamond plate metal, which Descant said is used to build rafts where he lives by the Arkansas River in Colorado because “it doesn’t rust and has grip.”
The base is made of a steam radiator from a 120-year-old hotel in Salida, Colorado, and the stand is made from industrial motor parts.
All of the pieces are bolted, as opposed to welded, together.
Descant drove for two days last summer from his home in Salida to install the 12-foot, 1,500-pound sculpture. It took two hours with the help of a crane and a crew of four provided by the city. A kids art class happened to let out at the time.
“They asked if they could go inside and go to space and I said sure,” said Descant.
While he was growing up, Descant’s father Joe worked as a photographer for NASA, taking photos of fuel tanks built in New Orleans for the Apollo missions.
The title of the piece references the Greek legend.
“What it’s actually doing is giving back to the gods in a dichotomy showcasing what man has done with the fire Prometheus stole from the gods,” he said. “It’s also showcasing what man has done, such as war, and the bad side of technology. There’s a ying and yang to my work. But the positive always wins out.”
Descant said he’s made 10 such large rocketships and a thousand of all sizes. They’ve been bought and are on display at Ripley’s Believe It or Not, including a branch in South Korea; the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota; the city of Lafayette, Colorado; and a bar in Washington, D.C., which bought a bunch and then decided to name itself the Rocket Bar.
Descant said he supports himself entirely through his art.
“I wouldn’t even call it a job,” he said. “It’s my passion.” ER
