Sadako Crane Project

Sadako Crane Project, by Jake Beckman, AKAJake, AKA Jake, is a 24 inch x 30 inch acrylic painting accompanied by 3 self-illuminating paper cranes; one is yellow, one is orange and one is white. Cranes are created from hand painted vellum, and have miniature flashlight; the battery life is only about an hour. The gallery wrapped canvas is painted to the exposed edges that it may be hung without a frame. FAR Tag  #: 1886.

Sadako Sasaki was a Hiroshima Bomb Survivor who began folding a 1000 cranes hoping her wish to survive cancer would be granted as accorded in legend. The legendary 1000 cranes did not save Sadako Sasaki, but in 1958 money collected by Japanese school children funded the creation of a statue in her honor in Hiroshima's Peace Park. Since then young children fold thousands of cranes to adorn the statue.

This work is created to memorialize the hope against the travails of war that Sadako and her cranes have come to symbolize. The Sadako Crane Project is a painting of Hiroshima's atom bomb dome cut across by an atomic shadow which divides the work into past and present. The present's hope for peace is symbolized by crane lanterns floating downstream; the work includes several paper cranes to float in front of the work. I installed this hopeful project at Cob4lt Blu3 Gallery in Phoenix on August 6, 2004 for artlink First Fridays on the 59th anniversary of the day the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima Japan-Jake