WIP: 1st Dio, a local location w/political overtones. Done.

Just got back from Jean Klock Park. All the signs which used to point out the location of the park are now gone. The concrete retaining wall which formed the entrance to the park is also gone (that was what was supposed to be the central feeature of my dio). The ten-foot-high dune it was holding back is also gone. There are no Park Entrance signs at the entrance and the entrance itself looks like part of a construction zone.

I snaked my way past two bulldozers and a couple of dump trucks and then followed the newly-laid asphalt road back to the beach. The red brick roads are gone, replaced with asphalt. Two years ago, when the public outcry intensified, the Harbor Shores Developement people offered to renovate the park at no charge...as a free-will gesture to the city of Benton Harbor. They've done a good job, but I would have liked a restoration instead of a renovation.

Here's a photo of an old picture post card of Jean Klock Park

Here's the new, renovated look (the streetlights are nice; there were none in the old park. It closed at dusk):

The flield stone pavilion has been replaced with something more airy and modern. And, as you can see, sand is already starting to cover the new asphalt road.

And here's what's happened on the other side of the hill which runs along the beach, before and after. (they've gotten rid of the water in the 2009 photo. They filled in the area with sand taken from the dunes).

So, I guess my dio will have meaning only to me and those people who actually witnessed the abandonment and decline of the park.

I have attached the concrete pieces to the base. Used a masonry drill-bit to drill holes in the base and the concrete pieces, and then used GOOP adhesive (plus flat-head screws through the holes) to cement the pieces to the base.

Worked on the dio some more last night. Cut and glued down my brick roadway. Spent this morning painting all the bricks a faded red.

Symbolic.

I was an artist before I returned to the hobby of modelling.

It would probably classify as an attempt at satire.

Went to the store and bought some water putty. Mixed in sand to give texture. For some reason, the sand turned the putty orange. Here's the results:

Just got my Tumpeter Stryker IV model, which I will be painting up as a UN vehicle, which will become part of the Jean Klock Park diorama (along with my newly done figures and a schwimwagen I had laying around).

After about the third time looking at it, I noticed the park name on the concrete.  This is a really cool and artistic idea... How are you thinking about positioning the Stryker IV and other troops and what not in the diorama?  Could you put something in it's place for right now so we could get a feel for the layout?

Another thing.  I'm not sure how to word this, but maybe you'll understand.   I'd imagine it with a bit of trash 'fluttering' on the beach.  How about a newspaper cover page with a big headline about the protest or something like that...

Take care,

Austin

That newspaper idea is a good one! Nice thought ark.

I think this one has a nice idea to it. Everyone models the past ... This one is about the present/ future. Not sure if it would ever come down to the UN protecting it, maybe the Guard (although I'm not sure what/ if any Guard units have STRYKRs.) Might be something to look at. But .... I like it. Has that 1960s civilian conflict feel to it.

Yep, that's the idea. One of the things which came with the Trumpeter Stryker kit is a bunch of paper make-some-cartons of Coca-Cola and Pepsi. That will work for the trash. I am working on a crumpled banner.

The funny thing is that the local protests really started when Whirlpool Corporation (who started in Benton Harbor and still has its World Headquarters here) rented the park for a recognition party for its management people. They then called the police to run out the people who came into the park a couple of hours before the picnic was supposed to start. Several people were threatened with arrest and Whirlpool later apologized to the community for the "misunderstanding."

That was the catalyst (I think) which formed the idea for the diorama when I found that piece of concrete. (Whirlpool and I go back a long way, to when I was an eccentric, noncomformist factory worker who played mind-games with them over their workplace rules--I would read books while on break. Think about that for a moment. The company and I actually had a five year tussle over that. My mother in law worked for them for a while as a typist and read my file. She told me it was more than two inches thick; containing mostly memos about how to deal with me and keep me quiet, and worrying that the union would tap me to do PR work during contract talks...which is funny because the guys running the union viewed me in much the same way).

Here are some phots showing the tentative placement of the two UN vehicles and two of the four figures.

PaintsWithBrush wrote:

charile98210, You are a book reader? A book reader? No wonder "They" had a file on you (wink). That is a nice Diorama you have going there.

The funny thing was, when the Plant Supervisor went to our union rep and told him to tell me to get rid of the books and stop reading, the union rep pointed out that three other people in the shop read the paper and he, personally, read the Wall Street Journal while on break. The Supervisor replied, "That's okay. But he's reading a g*d-d****d novel!"    

Ideas can be dangerous. They can make you think. They can make you dissatisfied with the status quo. And there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

The worst part of the illness I have, is that it is wreaking havoc on my reading abilities and cognition. And I am losing vocabulary (trouble accessing the words I want, when I want).

modelchasm wrote:

That newspaper idea is a good one! Nice thought ark. I think this one has a nice idea to it. Everyone models the past ... This one is about the present/ future. Not sure if it would ever come down to the UN protecting it, maybe the Guard (although I'm not sure what/ if any Guard units have STRYKRs.) Might be something to look at. But .... I like it. Has that 1960s civilian conflict feel to it.

I know some have the new M-rap (don't know how to spell it) and another modern armored vehicle it might be called a buffolo. Not sure if they have strykers, but they have up-armored humvees which might be amore realistic option in the states as they're phasing out in the middle east.

Last night I used my graphics program to create some United Nations shoulder insignia for the soldiers in my diorama.

In this photo, you can see (sort of) the UN insignia. You can also see the trashed protest banner laying on the ground and the guy on the left is drinking from a Pepsi can.

This is a photo of the UN force commander reading one of the protest flyers (UN insignia on his shoulder)

And there is now a small UN flag fluttering bravely from the top of the concrete retaining wall.

Quote from Mainstein's revenge:  So what happened to the Whirlpool plant?

They closed the St. Joseph Division down. Then bulldozed it. The engineering building called "The Laundry Group" is still there. Across the St. Joseph River, Plant 7 (the plating and metal tube extruding plant) was renamed the Benton Harbor Division. 2500 factory jobs were lost. I was there almost to the very end, even though I only had thirteen years seniority. When they shut down the mini-washer assembly line, I got a temporary job, taking the place of a twenty-year seniority guy who was out recovering from open-heart surgery, and I worked in what was left of Plant 6 (originally called the Porcelain Plant. Until 1983, the tops and lids of all Whirlpool's washing machines were porcelain-coated. Plant 6 did the porcelain coating for all three of Whirlpool's appliance divisions--St Joseph Division in Michigan, the Clyde Division in Ohio, and the Marion Division, also in Ohio). They finished closing the main factory toward the end of May, 1987.

If I have misunderstood your question and you were actually asking what happened to the Whirlpool plant in the diorama...well, it's not supposed to be in there.

charlie98210 wrote:

Quote from Mainstein's revenge:  So what happened to the Whirlpool plant? They closed the St. Joseph Division down. Then bulldozed it. The engineering building called "The Laundry Group" is still there. Across the St. Joseph River, Plant 7 (the plating and metal tube extruding plant) was renamed the Benton Harbor Division. 2500 factory jobs were lost. I was there almost to the very end, even though I only had thirteen years seniority. When they shut down the mini-washer assembly line, I got a temporary job, taking the place of a twenty-year seniority guy who was out recovering from open-heart surgery, and I worked in what was left of Plant 6 (originally called the Porcelain Plant. Until 1983, the tops and lids of all Whirlpool's washing machines were porcelain-coated. Plant 6 did the porcelain coating for all three of Whirlpool's appliance divisions--St Joseph Division in Michigan, the Clyde Division in Ohio, and the Marion Division, also in Ohio). They finished closing the main factory toward the end of May, 1987. If I have misunderstood your question and you were actually asking what happened to the Whirlpool plant in the diorama...well, it's not supposed to be in there.

Quote from Manstein's revenge: Nope, you answered it...where did they move the production to, down south?

We were union organized (IAM Local 1918). Clyde and Marion were not. In the mid-seventies Whirlpool moved its distibution centers to Ohio.

St Joe Division could build the washing machines for $17 less per machine than the non-union divisions, but shipping the machines to the distribution centers by truck killed us in costs.

Word was, "It was a simple economic decision."

Like when they (Whirlpool) closed the Maytag factories in Iowa. Just business. Sorry.

Oh...and they made the decision to close the St Joe Division three weeks after celebrating the Division's 75th year of production.

charlie98210 wrote:

Quote from Manstein's revenge: Nope, you answered it...where did they move the production to, down south? We were union organized (IAM Local 1918). Clyde and Marion were not. In the mid-seventies Whirlpool moved its distibution centers to Ohio. St Joe Division could build the washing machines for $17 less per machine than the non-union divisions, but shipping the machines to the distribution centers by truck killed us in costs. Word was, "It was a simple economic decision." Like when they (Whirlpool) closed the Maytag factories in Iowa. Just business. Sorry.   Oh...and they made the decision to close the St Joe Division three weeks after celebrating the Division's 75th year of production.

Hmmm...perhaps it is that the destruction of the St Joseph Division and the destruction of the Jean Klock Park's wetlands/dunes habitat are kind of spiritually linked in what I am trying to express in my "UN moves in to quell the protests" diorama.

What was it William Faulkner said? "The Past isn't dead. It isn't even past."  ......and like Banquo's ghost, it just won't go away.

That's something I'm gonna hafta ponder on.

edit, added: I have to add, here, that Whirpool's closing of the Division turned out to be the best thing that happened to me. I wrote an unpublished novel, started my own stained glass business (which ended when I suffered a mild stroke), and became a small-town grocery store cashier who had my own following of customers, and was employee of the year once and employee of the month seven times during my ten year stay at that store. Personality-wise, I really blossomed. At Whirpool, I was pretty much a recluse and a loner, suspicious of everyone.

Worked on mocking up a newspaper front page. The closest thing I got off the web to our local papers was the South Bend Tribune. The Herald Palladium (our local paper) makes you pay a dollar to view the web facsimile and then it won't let you copy it. Just read it.

Here is my fake frontpage. 3x5 inch image, so you probably don't need to click on the thumbnail:

When I shrink it down to a scale which looks normal to the figures in my diorama, however, you can't read the headlines without a magnifying glass.

I've made a 3x5 inch print which folded to look like a real newspaper, added some "inside" sheets, andmade a little metal stand which tucks under the base of the diorama, acting as a kind of title for it.

You dont have to copy it.  You use the 'prtscn' button it means print screen.  That takes a snapshot of your desktop and puts it in your clipboard.

From there open paint and just simply paste, and voila there is your newspaper

Oh, well. I like the results I have, so it doesn't matter.

And I like the article about the popularity of fixing up your home being right next to the "UN" headline. That's small-town newspapring at its best.  

falschimjager wrote:

Why does the UN have a shwimwagon (or however you spell it)?

I had one sitting around.

I do, however, have a LKW G-Wagen on order that I'm going to try and convert to a passable VW Iltis (I think all I have to do is increase the downward angle of the hood, remove the doors and trim a little of the body behind them, leave off the convertable top, and use the grill from the non-Mercedes version).

That--if successful--would then take the place of the schwimmwagen.

If not, then one of the participating UN countries must be using schwimmwagens.

I got the United Nations decals from a place called The Barrel Store, located in Canada. Once I got them on the Stryker, I glued the model to its spot on the diorama.

Here are the pictures: