Artist Statement

Take Me to Your Leader is a sculpture constructed of a steel subframe with aluminum cladding and an acrylic hemisphere “bubble” on top. The idea stems from a conversation from 1996 when the Olympics came to Atlanta. Barnes had given some old doors to a local artist that lived in Cabbagetown named Raymond (Panorama Ray) Herbert. He took the doors and painted folk art images of the Atlanta skyline with UFO’s in the sky. When Barnes asked him why, Herbert responded, “Cuz when the aliens come to Earth, they are not going to Moscow or Washington, they have coming right here to Atlanta to talk with Jimmy Carter.”