Tom Otterness

This guy, Tom Otterness, is one of my favorite sculptors. I first caught onto his stuff while I was in High School on the Lower West Side of Manhattan because he was commissioned to do what I think is one of the best civic sculpture parks I've ever seen. It's called "the real world". I'm not even going to begin to entertain notions of discussing the stupid tv show by the same name, so just wipe that crap out of your mind. Anyhow, for those of you still with me now that MTV isn't in the mix, if you have the ability, walk west on Chambers St. in Manhattan (pretty easy, find the Brooklyn Bridge, go West) and head to Battery Park City, where this amazing installation still resides. One of these days, I'll get photos, but do yourselves a favor and check it out.
Here's the best part, Fast forward about six years, imagine yourself down in D.U.M.B.O. (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) actually, before it was really even called that, living in an old paper factory, trying to make a short film to get into Tisch at NYU while working at a struggling film studio down there- March your ass into Tom Otterness' studio, conveniently located right there on the top floor of an old factory building, tell the guy why you admire his stuff and that you'd like to get access to the roof to shoot some scenes for the film you're trying to do...
Now, I've met with famous artists before, and usually unfortunately they end up dissappointing. This guy though, took time to hear my little request, stopped what he was doing, tried to talk me out of it, and then had two of his assistants escort me up to the roof to make sure nobody got killed, all the while saying, I sanction absolutely none of this, but if you're going to do it, I wanna make sure nobody gets hurt. This guy is all kindsa cool in my book. Check him out- Tom Otterness