The Constituent became because the artist was interested in creating  a puppet with significance at least to him.  

There's a smoke in one hand and a can of beer in the other.  He has a good sized pot belly for a thin guy.  

His strings are attached to the American version of a marionette controller as contrasted to the European style 

because he is, after all, part of us.  He hangs from a version of a gallows and each string is tied at the bottom end 

with a noose.                                 (There's more below the pictures.)

                                                                                                  Constituent, painted wood,60"HX16"WX16"D

The explanatory document below the Constituent in the pictures reads

This puppet’s original inception took place long before then, but his modern incarnations began in the late 1960’s. 

Once he realized that his was a wooden existence he passionately wanted  to become a real person like

Pinocchio had done.  And twice since then he has actually  transformed himself into a human being, 

the first time in 1976 and then again in 1992.  For whatever reasons, both times his humanity was short-lived 

and he regressed to the inert, marionette self you see here.  

Even in this wooden state he retains some semblance of a brain and is able to realize who is working the strings. 

Since November of 2000 however, he seems to care even less than during his previous regressions.  

It is likely that the continued plentiful supply of beer and smokes contributes most to this attitude, 

but it’s also as likely that while his basswood brain has somehow helped him to master the art of dissembling, 

especially while talking to himself, he really doesn't know what any of it means.

When it is expedient, he puts on the American flag, but most of the time he wears nothing, 

and his tiny nakedness is apparent to anyone who happens to notice.  

His favorite song is “I’ve got the world on a string.”; his current favorite beer is Butsch,

whose command motto is “Heavensent”; he sleeps soundly while dangling; and he likes his toupee.

November 2004 Update:  

To his chagrin he found out that there are 59, 054,087 others whose existence approximates his own.

 Item # WM4001   

                                                                                                        $1200.00     

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