Sea Blanket Springsteen

Princeton, New Jersey

"I never went near Mr. Springsteen at all with this," said sculptor Stephen Zorochin of his latest Bruce tribute, Sea Sea Rider: A Jersey Legend. "I just threw it out there in the wind and it clicked."

The sculpture is an expansion of Stephen's 2011 tribute, Bruce Springsteen: Soulful Humanitarian -- also created without Springsteen's input -- which features the bandana-wearing head of the famous Jersey Shore rocker. For Sea Sea Rider, however, Stephen created a full-body Springsteen. Except for his red headband, Bruce is completely green. Springsteen carries an electric guitar and wears a leather jacket, but his body is wrapped in a blanket-like cape of sea shells and foam.

"Being a rock star is just part of who he is," said Stephen of Springsteen. "What he's really about is the Jersey Shore. He wears the ocean. It's his fiber."

Stephen said he was inspired by Springsteen's 2016 memoir, Born to Run. "There was one chapter where he was spending his time under the boardwalk in a sleeping bag," said Stephen. "I lived at the ocean for a bit myself, and you'd see people wake up in the morning and they'd come off the beach wrapped in a blanket. I'm sure that's exactly what he did when he was penniless in Asbury Park."

Inspired, Stephen spent the winter of 2016 creating the sculpture. It was unveiled outside a Princeton gas station on April 30, 2017. Station owner Gary Fowler, a fellow Springsteen supporter, had previously donated the spot to display a copy of Stephen's Soulful Humanitarian head.

"If you screw up, people are gonna hate it, but if you do a good job, people are gonna like it," said Stephen of his latest ad hoc Springsteen creation. "So far, people have liked it."