Jason Sprinkle
| Jason Sprinkle | |
|---|---|
| Born |
6 November 1969 Fullerton, California |
| Died | 16 May 2005 (aged 35) Long Beach, Mississippi |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Job Corps |
| Known for | Sculpture, Guerrilla art |
| Notable work |
Ball and Chain The Heart of Seattle The Heart of the American Youth |
| Movement | Fabricators of the Attachment |
Jason Sprinkle (November 6, 1969 - May 16, 2005) was a Seattle-based sculptor and guerrilla artist. He was most famous for attaching a 700-pound ball and chain around the foot of Jonathan Borofsky's Hammering Man outside of the Seattle Art Museum and for various other illegal art sculptures left at Westlake Park. These actions ended in July 1996 when Sprinkle's final sculpture caused a bomb scare and Sprinkle was briefly imprisoned. After suffering a mental breakdown in jail, Sprinkle stopped making art and became a born again Christian. He died in 2005 after being hit by a train.
Sprinkle was born in Fullerton, California and raised in Seattle. In his youth he earned his GED from Job Corps and learned the craft of welding.
On Labor Day, September 6, 1993 Sprinkle and a group of other local Seattle artists caused a local sensation by illegally attaching a 700-pound ball and chain around the foot of Jonathan Borofsky's Hammering Man outside of the Seattle Art Museum. The Seattle Arts Commission's director Wendy Ceccherelli famously criticized the group's actions and publicly stated "I wouldn't call these people artists, I'd call them fabricators of the attachment." Sprinkle and his friends then began calling themselves the Fabricators of the Attachment, or FA, and Sprinkle earned the nickname "Subculture Joe." Other members of the Fabricators of the Attachment included Art Donnelly, Rob Shealy and Jim Blanchard. The Ball and Chain was attached to Hammering Man until September 8, when the Seattle Engineering Department removed it. It was then auctioned off for $1,300 in October 1993 for a fundraiser for Job Corps.
On Valentine's Day 1994 Sprinkle and the Fabricators of the Attachment installed a 13-foot steel sculpture of a black heart with a dagger in it titled The Heart of Seattle in Westlake Park in the middle of downtown Seattle. Sprinkle and the Fabricators of the Attachment continued to make and illegally install sculptures at Westlake Park for several years in the mid-1990s, such as a large Frankenstein-inspired sculpture called Frankentree.
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