DENVER — ‘Burning Man’ is without a doubt one of the largest events to take place in America each summer. In recent years, more than 70,000 people have attended it annually.
The event is an experimentation of sorts between community and art. Which is why artists from all over the country produce pieces for it.
“There’s a million little pieces that need to come together before August,” said Wynn Earl Buzzell Jr., the artist and creator behind ‘Light Years Away’.
Buzzell came up with the idea for ‘Light Years Away’ while attending last summer’s Burning Man in Nevada.
“The kind of overarching concept of the sculpture came from me seeing dust devils and fire tornadoes at Burning Man,” the artist explained. “So the sculpture itself is basically a 20 feet tall representation of the vortex”.
The sculpture will feature a spiral of 4,000 LED lights that will be placed inside spheres designed by Buzzell. It will also feature incredible flames that shoot from the top of it.
“The sculpture represents the boundary between kind of our world and the spirit world,” Buzzell said. “I look at [it] as representing what we know and what we don’t know”.
‘Burning Man’ awarded Buzzell a hefty grant; the kind every submitting artist hopes to get. But it’s ‘Burning Man’s’ philosophy to only offer partial grants, requiring builders to seek additional funds on their own.
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To see the full story and learn more about Buzzell’s project, select ‘play’ on the video above to watch Kevin Torres‘ Unique 2 Colorado series.