Perhaps Speaker Spencer Gosch should issue a cease-and-desist order to the Department of Public Safety from commissioning artwork that creates public pressure to stop distracted driving:
The South Dakota Office of Highway Safety wants a transportable, outdoor sculpture that is made of 254 cell phones, to bring awareness to the dangers of distracted driving.
The Highway Safety will provide recycled cell phones as the sculpture’s primary medium.
One artist will be selected to complete this project and awarded $7,000 in compensation to cover additional materials and labor costs.
All amateur or professional sculptors or artists of all backgrounds may enter proposals. The deadline is March 16. The winner will be notified by March 25, and their project completion deadline is May 2.
Mail submissions to Lawrence & Schiller, Attn: Mollee Hanson, 3932 S. Willow Ave., Sioux Falls, SD 57105. Or email submissions to Mollee.hanson@l-s.com with the subject line labeled “Distracted Driving Phone Sculpture Proposal” [staff, “Submit an Idea for $7K Phone Sculpture,” Pierre Capital Journal, 2022.03.10].
The Office of Highway Safety is a branch of the Department of Public Safety, whose Secretary Craig Price has prominently participated in Governor Kristi Noem’s campaign to press the Legislature to remove killer distracted driver Jason Ravsnborg from office. The Office of Highway Safety posted this call for proposals on January 24; March 16 (next Wednesday!) is the last day to submit, and the OHS wants the sculpture done and installed by May 2, which is the earliest day on which the Senate could convene a trial to remove Ravnsborg from the Attorney General’s office.
The OHS’s intent is clear: they want a “transportable sculpture that will be displayed at heavily trafficked areas in different towns across South Dakota” to memorialize the “254 drivers that were injured or killed due to distracted driving in South Dakota in 2020″—including Joe Boever, the man distracted driver Jason Ravnsborg killed on September 12, 2020—so they can plunk that grim art down in the South Dakota Capitol parking lot, where every Senator can see it on the way in to hear the evidence and vote. They want a sculpture they can put on a truck and haul right past Senator Schoenbeck’s house to remind him of the grim toll Jason Ravnsborg’s disregard for law and safety has taken.
This cell phone sculpture is obviously just another part of Governor Kristi Noem’s pressure campaign to oust the Attorney General. Surely Speaker Gosch will see through this ploy and dash off a letter to the Office of Highway Safety to halt this nefarious exercise in political expression… since the last thing he wants is any public reminder that we should hold Jason Ravnsborg and other distracted drivers accountable for the pain and death they cause.
What was the cost of the contract, er bribe, to Laurence & Shrill?
One begrudgingly has to admit that the idea improves on the campaign: ‘Meth, We’re On It’.
This is some pro level trolling of Jason “Killer” Ravnsborg. I support this effort, Joe Boever’s life is worth $7000.
Nick, maybe you could whip up a design and submit by Wednesday. Maybe a collaborative design effort by victims’ families would make for a powerful artistic statement.
As for pro-level trolling, well, it’s not like anyone in the Noem Administration is actually governing. They have lots of time to think up pro-level trolling.
To be clear, like Nick, I support this investment in art that serves the public and promotes public safety.
So, a passing driver is distracted looking at this “sculpture.” What could possibly go wrong?
254 old cel phones made into a picture frame.
Ravensborgs lying mug right in the middle.
i dig this. i’ll try to come up with something. would probably be tough to make it obvious what the point of the sculpture is, but that’s also the fun part.
PHONES: WE’RE ON IT! /s
It should include a display screen to run the Ravnsborg interview by North Dakota investigators again and again.
I’ll get my daughter on it. She made a beautiful sculpture with deer hide over a woman’s torso that was laying on its side with a deers head and antlers. It was called Traveling Through the Dark after a well known poem. It won several awards and was picked best of show by Dave Hickey in a Tampa show and was picked by the Sculpture Magazine for their Outstanding Student Achievement show. I liked the fact that men used to lay down behind it to be photographed, whatever that means. It was a “killer” sculpture and he did think he hit a deer, right? You can look it up. Traveling Through the Dark, sculpture, deer hide.
Of course, it’s Lawrence & Schiller – it always is. If Nick Nemec is going to submit a design, he’d better use an alias.
Is this your daughter’s sculpture Mark?
https://arthur.io/art/soerine-anderson/traveling-through-the-dark
If so, it’s pretty amazing.
Absolutely amazing…good thing she doesn’t hang out in South Dakota..her art would be shunned.
Bearcreekbat, yes that’s it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S9bTOoFXSw
TYT finally picked up the Ravnsborg saga and has some pointed questions for people of South Duhkota. Interesting episode with a gentleman not afraid to show anger and disgust with pols and police.
Wow, Mr. Anderson. Original as it is beautiful. She done right proud by us all.