Friday, February 6, 2009

I Loves My Lady Liberty


"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore; Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

November 2, 1883
Emma Lazarus (1849 - 1887)

Nothing celebrates the promise of America like this statue in New York harbour. Ken Burns created an awesome documentary for it on his series American Stories. Its an iconic modern wonder and one day I am going to see her in person. I refer to her like she is a real person because to me she is. Every collage I create have to include three images...Spider-man, Superman and the Statue of Liberty.

The Statue of Liberty, formerly known as "Liberty Enlightening the World", was the brainchild of French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, a gift from France to America. Its construction took hundreds of workers working 7 days a week, 10 hours a day, 9 years to complete in 1884. 350 statue pieces were packed into 214 crates and shipped from France to New York. The statue was reconstructed on Bedloe Island, now called Liberty Island, in New York harbor because this was where people would get their first view of the New World as they sailed into the harbor. The statue is a universal symbol of freedom that welcomes all immigrants coming to America.

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