1500 hands !

July 1st, 2003 in front of Laurel Van Leer's Garage, East Brunswick, NJ, is the twelve foot high Rubber Hand PVC Pipe standing tall (left). For two days Laurel invited neighbors to color multi-colored surgical gloves with permanent magic markers. After the coloring, the gloves got stuffed and a knot tied. Then the knotted end was glued into one of the holes drilled near the top of the pipe or slipped into bands running around the lower half. Layer on layer the pipe took shape.

This is the closest pipe to being local artist's, Judy Wray's. Judy is the conceptualist for the Pipe Dreams show in New Jersey. The development of this pipe is notable, as about 600 people of all ages have worked on it. 

Artist, Little Bobby Duncan drilled about 150 holes in the pipe, and Atilla, the welder, (East Brunswick Foreign Auto Sales & Repair) welded 3 tire rims for a base), so where is Judy? ..the idea was in her head and she managed to convey it with
as much clarity and enthusiasm as could be mustered...and got all those people
to humor her!!)  Generally an artist works alone, developing a piece.

Art is a reflection of the times...someone said.

Pipe Dreams is an art adventure creating together swiftly across boundaries of all kinds.

July 4th, 2003 Milltown, NJ parade! (Below, The progression leading up to it!)

TEENARTS-  "Twelve Foot Pipe With Rubber Hands"

Artist, Little Bobby Duncan worked with 3 schools from Perth Amboy as part of Teen Arts at Middlesex County College. Their project was to begin the rubber hand pipe.

The Rubber Hand Pipe Continues with Career Day and students at Robert N. Wilentz School, Perth Amboy, NJ

Where is the Rubber Hand Pipe right now (November, '05) In the classroom of Janet Caruso at the New Hope Foundation, Marlboro, NJ, where more teens are adding a hand, literally to art.

The man behind the rubber gloves- Douglass, the mortician at University of Medicine and Dentistry-RWJMS-  Douglass has had a hand in projects with visiting artists  as far away as New Zealand and often giving us a helping hand in unusual ways. Douglass supplied the gloves!

Where did the 12 ft PVC Pipe come from? The GREEK at The Stone Museum supplied 2 van loads of  PVC pipe. We spent two years cleaning it all up, repainting pipes, trimming, cutting, assembling and passing them out..and then creating bases for them when they began to come back in again.

More hands have been added by the students at UMDNJ-RWJMS and most recently from 8 students..from the Voyagers Learning Center, Holmdel, NJ.

Houdini had a magic show where he would invite 10 people from the audience to come up to the stage and extend a finger under the body of a prone subject..together they would levitate the body, easily. VAL art adventures attempt to channel the creative energies from around the world, leaping boundaries of age, space and time and assembling it all on the Internet. Together we write a story and get to watch as it unfolds from all our corners of the world.

Log on to valweb.org

Give creative freedom a hand anyway you can think of and money works too!

 J. Wray