Friday Flyer at the P & A Building

The Idea John Acorn's project is a grouping of six 8-foot folded paper airplane forms made out of half inch plate aluminum placed around the Hendrix Center. After listening to student suggestions, he responded to an idea to disperse the planes throughout campus, thus extending the piece’s relationship to the whole campus. The final project, titled Friday Flyers, sites six of the paper airplane forms around campus as though they were tossed from one site, the Hendrix Student Center, and randomly landed throughout campus. Happenstance as Metaphor The random placement of these six forms symbolizes the importance of diversity, chance, innovation, and human perseverance. The release of a paper airplane and its subsequent course parallels academia in the function of sending out the seeds of an idea for others to discover and explore. Both actions require embracing curiosity, imagination, and courage. Both journeys are can be influenced by variables such as knowledge, history, and environment. Friday Flyers speaks to the relationship between these two seemingly disparate experiences and celebrates a gesture of human exchange that is meaningful and significant. Friday Flyers points to the success of a shared idea. The work leaves the hands of John Acorn and functions to inspire those who are touched by its potential. Inspiration and Accessibility Choosing the folded paper airplane as his subject and increasing its scale, Acorn creates a work that becomes a monument to a recognizable childhood form and an icon for a broad audience. The scale of the final work remains comparable in scale to the human body, allowing the viewer an opportunity to bring his or her own unique experiences to the artwork. A Celebration of Curiosity Friday Flyers is powerful in its ability to craft a bridge between the playful and the serious. The work communicates a powerful connection between the simplicity of childhood curiosity and higher education in the pursuit of knowledge. Friday Flyers encourages the viewer to remember his original inquisitive nature and his desire to realize dreams. The work emphasizes the nexus between the process of human development and the vitality of human discovery. A Marker for the Future Like many other commissioned public artworks across the nation, this piece speaks on behalf of the ideas embraced by a community. Friday Flyers will become an enduring symbol of excellence, creativity, individuality, and diversity. These planes serve to express the passion contained within all of us to design an object to exceed all others, to fly the farthest. Friday Flyers invariably points to the future and to the spot within us all which drives us to push beyond any accepted standard. John Acorn's work addresses the potential within every individual and asks that we forge ahead with innovative ideas in addressing contemporary challenges.