Route 66 enjoys great nostalgia value in the United States and around the world. I received a commission for a sculpture evoking the highway, and really enjoyed looking up its history and path across the United States. It was actually formed by connecting pre-existing roads and in the beginning was called "bloody 66" because of the number of people who died driving on it. There were no traffic lights in 1926 when it came into existence.

In my sculpture, I depicted the most famous stops along the way in little bas reliefs, which gave birth to this somewhat constructivist approach. The man and child represent the movement westward in 1926; their car broke down and they are stranded on Route 66. I gave the title "The Mother Road" to the sculpture after the novel The Grapes of Wrath in which John Steinbeck refers to Route 66 in this way.

Here are a couple of pictures of the prototype in plasticine:

Note that Santa Monica (California) is written in relief at the top, which is the end of Route 66 which starts in Chicago.

The piece was cast in bronze and placed in front of the Joliet Historical Museum in Illinois, USA

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My website: www.kathleenscarboro.fr