great moments in sculpture #508 remix

The play-by-play recap:

the vacant lot before

also before

AnnieBob uses the plasma torch to cut shapes

JAW also plasma torching

AnnieBob's shapes welded together just like her sketch

JAW's shapes welded together like her sketch

At this point with most projects the students would put a quick couple of coats of paint on and they'd be done. The worst would be over.

That's what they thought.

And then the real work began...

AnnieBob and JAW learning the shovel as a sculptural tool

Digging through several inches of gravel, brick, clay, and local history

Mixing and pouring concrete

Leveling and surfacing the concrete

This also is an art

Several hours of back wrenching work led to this

and this

Then they brought in the freshly painted sculptures. They anchored them to the concrete, put out some pine straw for accent and gave interviews to the various media outlets gathered to see the show. Then they posed proudly for a few hundred photos.

Both were proud and tired of smiling and at this point they were both threatening me with harm for putting them through all this.

The next day they were featured on the front page of the local paper - above the fold. They are now famous artists and the once vacant lot is now properly beautified.

And I know it doesn't look like it here but I promise I helped them dig those giant holes and pour that concrete. I have the back pain to prove it.

Big thanks to Jon Holloway for providing the vacant lot, the pine straw, and a lot of cement mixing help.