Recently, I began asking youthful visitors to the International Cryptozoology Museum (ICM) if they has ever heard of Bucky Fuller. Most answered negatively, having never heard the name.
Then I started giving clues like “geodesic dome.” Still blank faces.
Next, I tried “Spaceship Earth” and “Fool on the Hill” (by the Beatles). Slowly, some signs of recognition began to emerge.
But in general, people don’t know who Buckminster Fuller is. They are unaware of his being an early member of the Fortean Society, or that his interests were broad-based, beyond his inventions and architecture. I hope to see that change.
Some people are visual. So one way that this re-introduction of Bucky to cryptozoology, Fortean zoology, and beyond, is with a new painting showing Bucky, a southern Illinois Bigfoot, one of his domes, an 1897 Midwestern Airship, and the classic Fortean phenomena of falling frogs.
Today, the ICM is proud to place a newly commissioned painting by the artist Andy Finkle of Bucky Fuller on display. (See more info on Andy Finkle’s art at Facebook, here, and directly to his site, here.) It is the visual “title” of an upcoming talk of mine.
One measures a circle, beginning anywhere. ~ Charles Fort
Finkle’s Fuller panorama now hangs with his Charles Fort painting.
I will be keynoting a new talk about Bucky Fuller as a Fortean at the Fuller Future Festival in Carbondale, Illinois, in April 2013. Hope to see you there.
Bucky pictured on the cover of Time, with some of his inventions.
Loren, I’m not sure that’s a fair question. With exception of persons such as yourself who knew him, I don’t think most people who have heard of Buckminster Fuller would recognize him as “Bucky Fuller.”