Starving Sculptors

To be a derby star, you must sacrifice.

by Andrew Thompson

Andrew Thompson

[ events/festivals ]

John Spetrino doesn't even remember the prize his 10-member team, Octu Vishnu, took home when it won the "Best Art" category in last year's Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby.

And yet the event's participants, who create folk art-inspired, man-powered vehicles that are judged for their creativity and engineering, act like they're vying for pots of gold: Spetrino estimates that between himself and a half-dozen other teammates on his current team, Sand Reckoner, this year's project has cost 1,000 man-hours, 471 scrapped bikes and a wad of cash he doesn't want to specify. And that was when they still had two weeks left to go.

"It never gets tiring mentally for me. I get tired physically, but it always stimulates me," says Spetrino, a mechanical design engineer by trade. The ink is barely dry on his time card at work before he's in his warehouse, engineering the Sand Reckoner, a three-wheeled mammoth that's outfitted with a helm lined with bowling pins, and powered by two manned bike frames. "I probably log 16-hour days," says Spetrino, pictured second from the left. When the machine is completed, there will also be a large sculpture on the upper platform, but Spetrino refuses to hint at what it might be.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

Team Sand Reckoner is one of two teams that split from Octu Vishnu, which past attendees may remember for the colossal, bright orange octopus that crowned the team's multi-man, bike-like vehicle. The other is Flying Monkey, consisting of Heidi Karl and Jeremy Burmeister. Karl doesn't know exactly how much time she's spent on her machine, but says she clocked 13 hours the previous day on it, plus the entire night by the time I talk to her. "I get that question a lot," she says. She takes a breath and pauses. "I don't know. I have to think about that. It's fun to create something and fun to see everyone gather around and look at it and have a fun day. I've had friends say, 'That's a lot of work for a three-mile bike ride.' "

Since its maiden derby in 2007, the KKSD has become a sort of hallmark of the creative community in Kensington, Fishtown and Port Richmond — indeed, it takes place in concert with the area's biggest arts jubilee, the Trenton Avenue Arts Festival. And the derby has grown dramatically: Last year's event brought more than 4,000 visitors, compared to the 2,000 that came in 2007.

But the big numbers don't matter much to Spetrino. "I do it for that one person who has never seen anything like this and is inspired to do it better," he says. "The prizes are negligible to what we're getting. It's like, 'Oh we're getting a new bike.' We're probably going to chop that up and put it in a new project."

(andrew.thompson@citypaper.net)

Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby | Sat., May 16, noon-4 p.m., free, 2000-2300 Trenton Ave., 215-427-0350, kinetickensington.org