They’re waxing artistic

ECHO PARK artist Justin Stadel is questioning the timelessness of art with an ephemeral public installation: “Death of Wax Boat.”

Next Sunday, Stadel and associate Tony Saviour will launch into Echo Park Lake an 8-foot-long, 4-foot-wide sailboat cast entirely of wax candles except for a burlap wick that runs the length of the boat’s floor.

Although the exterior wax is made smooth, inside the boat are dozens of candles with wicks pointed upward. At dusk, all the wicks will be lighted and park visitors can watch it melt away.

Why? “It’s pretty much about turning the object of art into a moment,” Stadel says. “The environment is attached to the art, and the art is attached to the environment.”

This isn’t the first time Stadel has played mind games with the Echo Park community. Last year’s “Still Life in Memory” was a monthlong installation along Glendale Boulevard involving a park bench covered with yellow daisies and a trash receptacle clad in mirrors -- or not, depending on when you happened by.

-- Diane Haithman