Healing Machine: Metal etchings & assemblage sculpture

Artist Residencies

School: Whitman School
Educating Artist: Andrea Skyberg

Inspired by outsider artist, Emery Blagdon, the 1-6th graders created a Healing Machine out of aluminum, found metal, wire and beads. Over the course of this project, students gained a greater understanding of helpful and healing emotions such as love, compassion, happiness and creativity. Each student made a wish that would help manifest a more positive world. With that wish in mind, each child worked to create an image that could represent the essence of her/his wish. That image was etched into aluminum with an added patina. The students then attached wire and glass beads to each charm. Found metal was painted and altered and attached to the armature, along with tinfoil and strands of beads. It is our hope that the Healing Machine will radiate positive energy, love and beauty.

Who was Emery Blagdon?

Emery Blagdon was an self-taught artist, or what people in the art world would refer to as an outsider artist or visionary artist. He lived on a farm in rural Nebraska and started creating Healing Machines in 1956. He used his barn to construct large assemblages out of old wire, metal, tinfoil, ribbon, beads, magnets, and other found items. He believed that his Healing Machines generated an electromagnetic energy that could alleviate pain and prevent disease. After Blagdon died in 1986, the environment was acquired by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.