We rented a Penske box truck with a lift gate on Friday, loaded everything up and made the 4 hour drive to Terre Haute. On Saturday morning, we were joined by Mike, Tom and Dave of Sycamore Engineering, who had agreed to help us with the installation. We've been lucky to have great people to work with, on tough installations. Some of the top experiences that come to my mind are the crew at Art Castings of Colorado or the Cajun crew that helped at the LSU installation. But, these guys were incredible. You can't beat real life experience - they were a blessing!
We moved the black granite base into the site and set it up on boxes so that I could eventually crawl underneath to fasten the bronze sculpture.
Next, we brought in the bronze sculpture and fed the electrical wires into the base.
We used a Genie material lift (from Arts Equipment Rental on English Station Rd. in Louisville, KY) to raise the bronze sculpture onto the base. To the right, in the light green shirt, is Mary Kramer of Art Spaces, Inc. She was Meg's art director for this project.
After it was attached with threaded pins and nuts with washers, we lowered it onto the legs of the lift and rolled it into position. Meg was then able to visualize the complete sculpture and see how it related to the site.
Once the final position was determined, we marked the placement, rolled the piece out of the way, and marked the mounting holes with the template that Art Castings had provided.
The guys from Sycamore Engineering drilled the holes for the electric and the 4 mounting holes. When I say that they drilled holes, that is the extremely abridged version. In reality, that was a task. The floor is Terrazo over concrete over a steel 'pan'.
We hoisted the sculpture off the lift, set it on boards over the holes, and lifted the legs of the material lift for the final setting.
...and...giving you the short version, and sparing you the agonizing details....the pins were added under the sculpture base, and it was lowered into place.
While the Sycamore crew made the final attachments of the pins under the floor, I attached the light fixture, added a light bulb and set the globe over the spring clip of the light fixture.
When the electric leads were wired up, the power was turned on. This is the final sculpture in its new home.
This is a detail of the bronze portion of the sculpture. It was really great to see it all come together successfully at the site. Awesome job, Meg! (all photos copyright Meg White)
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