installing sculptures at Yew Dell Gardens

The main effort for this week was getting ready for the 2nd annual Yew Dell Gardens Outdoor Sculpture Show. The show opened on Friday and it was very successful! There were 65 sculptures by 22 artists and 3 high schools. The opening was attended by over 500 people, with a major portion of the sculptures having sold. We will give more details in a future posting.

Frankie Vessels of Vessels Trucking with a driver, Charlie Williams, showed up at the studio at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday. Derrick of JBB, inc. showed up with the 23 ton crane truck. We filled the semi with large sculptures, and had to haul a bench on the crane truck. A small sculpture (800 lb.) went in the back of our pick-up.
After making the 2 hour drive to Yew Dell Gardens in Crestwood, Kentucky, we installed Oberon on the entrance mound before loading more sculptures onto the crane.
"Embrace" was the second sculpture that was installed. I'm directing the piece down onto its pin.
It was quite a trick to get the straps out from under the 3,000 lb. sculpture. But, that's nothing compared to what it will take to get them back under, when we remove the works.
Raymond Graf's Lincoln looks on. There's a Matt Weir sculpture in the background. We'll show other works in a separate posting.
Every time that we moved the crane, we had to re-set the outriggers and the heavy wooden 'street pads'. Frankie and Charlie were great help, as was Derrick, the crane operator. It's wonderful to work with experienced people - they all help keep me out of trouble.
The next piece to go in was "Reveal".
Meg's "Wolf and Pups" found a great site, with the dark evergreen backdrop.
But then, the rain showed up. We took shelter under a tree, hoping that it would soon clear up. Eventually, we had to keep going. I think it was Derrick (next to his crane truck) who said "just as well soak it up".
We installed the "Vine Bench" under the sheltering tree. It sold at the opening. The new Marketing intern for Yew Dell Gardens watches our progress.
Going back for seconds. We went back to the parking lot to unload the rest of the sculptures from the semi, onto the crane truck. The access gate was too tight to get the big truck into the gardens, so we had to double handle everything.
Keep in mind that it's still raining - at least the photographer (Meg) had an umbrella. This sculpture "Exodus" sold at the opening, too, so it was all worth it.
Then, we installed Meg's "Sea Lion" out on the lawn.
"Miss Jessel" is flown into her site. She sold at the opening.
Anything worth doing, is worth re-doing. We had to re-set the crane and rigging to move the "Sea Lion" into a better position.
Karla Drover waves goodbye from my "Hand Seat". Karla, of Yew Dell Gardens, was the driving force responsible for pulling this show together.