The Feet and the Wave

Newport, Rhode Island

Part-time sculptor Katharine "Kay" Worden (1925-2015) enjoyed the kind of privileged life that has produced countless boring one-percenters. So it's to her credit that in 1983 she used her skills to create two quirky artworks for downtown Newport that have stood the goofiness test of time: Hurdy Gurdy Man, and her most well-known work, The Wave. Seven feet wide and eight feet high, The Wave is a blue-tinted bronze sculpture of a breaking ocean wave with a pair of bronze feet sticking out of it. In the summer the feet are burnished by the touches of passing pedestrians; in the winter they're usually outfitted with colorful socks. Worden did not create The Wave as an audience participation artwork, but she did live long enough to see, and appreciate, that that's what happened to it.