When you think of ghosts, usually they are living things — or rather, dead versions of things that used to be living. That's why some women have even claimed to have had extremely intimate experiences with ghosts.
The ghost of interest today, however, was never a living thing. Here's a hint: What runs all day but never moves?
A clock, of course!
The famous "Ghost Clock" is a piece of art that can be found in the Renwick Gallery in Washington DC. What's otherwise an unremarkable piece of dusty old furniture has been baffling gallerygoers since it was created in 1985.
The clock appears to be old and covered in a sheet, but there's actually no sheet involved at all.
In fact, if you were allowed to touch the art in a gallery, you would notice that the surface is cold and hard. How can this be?
As you can see, this clock looks just like an old grandfather clock you'd imagine finding in storage or at an estate sale.
You'd probably assume the clock has been covered to protect the wood from wear and tear over time.
However, the plaque underneath the sculpture reveals some very surprising information about the material this piece of art is really made with.
The plaque explains:
At first glance, Ghost Clock appears to be a grandfather clock hidden by a large white sheet tied with a rope.
A closer look, however, reveals a masterful deception: this entire sculpture was hand-carved from a single block of laminated mahogany.
With meticulous detail, Castle re-created in wood the contours of soft, supple cloth, then completed the illusion by bleaching the “drapery” white and staining the base of the clock brown.
This work is the last in a series of thirteen clocks the artist created in the 1980s: unlike the others, it lacks an inner mechanism. Its haunting stillness and silence suggest eternity — the absence of time.
It is difficult indeed to believe that the "drapery" isn't an actual sheet and that Wendell Castle could create such an illusion by carving it out of wood.
At second glance, you might be able to see that, for a piece of cloth, the material is in fact eerily still.
The "Ghost Clock" may have nothing to do with a real ghost, but you can certainly see where it got its name.
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