“Barrel Monster” creator, and N.C. State senior Joseph Carnevale unveiled his newest creation, the “Street Knight,” as a permanent piece of public art in the Cameron Village Regional Library, Thursday morning.
Carnevale created the sculpture as part of Cameron Village’s Earth Day celebratory event “Scrap to Sculpture,” and was positioned in the midst of Cameron Village for two weeks in April.
Carnevale used a collection of old street signs headed for a recycling center to create a sculpture measuring between 12 and 13 feet tall.
“My main inspiration for the sculpture mainly came from the outfits from The Gladiator, especially the torso area and the way the helmet doesn’t cover the whole face,” Carnevale said.
Carnevale said he enjoyed the chance to get paid for creating art.
“Thank you for a paid opportunity to make a real piece of art,” Carnevale told an audience Thursday morning. “It’s nice to have a permanent piece that will be here for a while.”
The ceremony celebrated the induction of the Street Knight with several important public figures, such as Mayor Charles Meeker, drilling the final screws into the sculpture, permanently situating the knight as an artistic protector of the library.
Given his past charges for vandalizing public property during the creation of the “Barrel Monster,” Carnevale described the ceremony as ironic.
“I never thought my art would become legitimate art with a plaque on the wall. I felt like some of what I’ve created would receive press coverage, but would never find its way to the limelight. It also just feels strange and ironic. I’m shaking hands with the mayor one day when the next night I could be climbing over a fence to take pictures for my photography collection where I’m not supposed to be,” Carnevale said.
Carnevale said he will graduate in December from the University with a history degree and plans to leave North Carolina for Chicago, where he said he hopes to continue developing interesting and creative pieces of art for by the public.
According to Carnevale, he has a couple of sculptures in the works, one of which will soon be a praying mantis.
“I picked a mantis because I’m using gardening materials, and the mantis is a cool insect that is a beneficial bug to its natural surroundings,” he said.
