President Barack Obama’s concrete head rested peacefully on an open-bed trailer outside Vino Vino wine bar on Guadalupe Street on Sunday evening. The 20-foot-tall sculpture of the president had just been hauled from Houston.
Its creator, 82-year-old artist David Adickes, is traveling with the 3½-ton bust, and grinned as he looked at the head that was parked on the street.
“Most people just ogled it on the highway,” he said. “Only one guy gave us the finger.”
Man, I wish I could have seen that on the highway. How awesome would that have been?
Adickes said he started making the bust Nov. 5, the day after Election Day. The hardest part, he said, was creating Obama’s hair because it is closely cropped, which made it blend in too much with the rest of the sculpture. “I antiqued his hair by putting paint into the creases of it,” he said.
Adickes, who lives in Houston, said he began making busts of presidents’ heads in 1994 after visiting Mount Rushmore. He said he was bothered because people couldn’t get close to the sculptures on the mountain.
Visitors can get as close as they like to his busts at Presidents Park.
“They can talk to them and touch them,” he said.
Have I mentioned lately that I love stories about David Adickes and his giant presidential heads? Because I do. And here’s a Houston Press photo slideshow from Pearland if you, like me, just can’t get enough of this stuff.