{"id":641,"date":"2009-06-04T09:38:40","date_gmt":"2009-06-04T16:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/06\/_james_l_acord_is\/"},"modified":"2009-06-04T09:38:40","modified_gmt":"2009-06-04T16:38:40","slug":"_james_l_acord_is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/06\/_james_l_acord_is.html","title":{"rendered":"James L. Acord – the transformation of (nuclear) waste"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Related post here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

While on the subject of dangerous waste, James L. Acord deserves a mention. <\/p>\n

(Below, portrait of the artist in his hasmat suit, via<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\"jamesacordhazmat.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>Prominent in Seattle in the 1980s, Acord moved to Richland early in the 1990s to hob-nob with engineers on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. His aim was to make sculpture from nuclear material, more specifically, to transmute a radioactive isotope of technetium to a stable or
\nnonradioactive isotope of ruthenium and incorporate it into a stone and
\nadvanced metal alloy sculpture.<\/p>\n

Determined to shed his old identity and become somebody with whom
\nengineers might identify, he frequented Richland’s Goodwill store, buying
\nthe kind of suits, ties and shirts engineers wear.
\nHis hair he cropped down to a military crew cut. His shirt pocket sprouted a pen protector. As he said at the time:<\/p>\n

The less you
\nfrighten people, the further you get. People here tend to
\nthink of artists as the enemy. Conversation bump along on square wheels, but they bump along.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If artists are the enemy, they’re not the kind of enemy Richland
\nresidents need to worry about. In his time there, Acord found few others. When he was featured in a
\ntwo-part profile<\/a> by Philip Schuyler in The New Yorker<\/i> (October ’91), he was unable to find the magazine on sale in the Tri-Cities area.
\n(Acord’s project covered in the Guardian here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

In 1993, after endless negotiations with the Department of
\nEnergy, Acord became the only individual on the planet licensed to
\n“own and possess” nuclear material. To mark his triumph, he had the
\nlicense number tattooed on the back of his neck, regrettably
\nundercutting his efforts to pass for a local.<\/p>\n

Alchemy is the age-old dream. I want to render high-level
\nnuclear waste harmless and use it in sculpture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If nuclear waste can be rendered inert, why isn’t it done? Expense is
\nthe reason the Department of Energy gives, but Accord had other ideas.<\/p>\n

The Department of Energy is like the Catholic Church in the 12th
\ncentury. It’s a fully mature bureaucracy. It’s
\ncommitted to the dogma that waste should be buried in the ground. It
\nhas 30 years of studies worth billions of dollars saying that waste
\nburial is good. Getting it to backtrack is hard.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Anyone with current info on Acord, please post in the comments.)<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Related post here.) While on the subject of dangerous waste, James L. Acord deserves a mention. (Below, portrait of the artist in his hasmat suit, via.) Prominent in Seattle in the 1980s, Acord moved to Richland early in the 1990s to hob-nob with engineers on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. His aim was to make sculpture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}