Mini KRAKEN

We've really been pushing the concrete work in our shop of late with only a handful of features remaining left to sculpt for the Trinidad project. Each day when the concrete needs sculpting the painting is abandoned. This means the shop is littered with almost complete projects. The KRAKEN sign is one of the many slowly making its way through paint department. Each day a little bit is done as time permits and it is looking absolutely awesome.

The painters are down to the final glaze on the submarine. Once that is done the lifesaver will get it's final coats of paint and the lettering will be last. 

Steer a little starboard mate

When we did the Cultus Lake Adventure Park we built a gnarly tree with four directional signs on it. Each sign said the same thing...  FUN with an arrow pointing in each direction. I designed a similar sign for the Trinidad park. Peter suggested we do something a little different and I loved his idea. To keep with the theme of the project and to better tell the story I carved in the four nautical terms for direction on a ship. Starboard, port, bow and stern.

To take things just a little over the top we carved a skull into the cut tree branch.

Through the park there will be many such small details that will make this park truly original.

A five year story

About five years ago I first met a charming fellow from Trinidad. He had arrived in Vancouver, fresh off a cruise to Alaska with his wife. They jumped in a taxi cab and told the driver to take them to the very best mini golf in the land. After many stops and more than a hundred mile journey they arrived up at Giggle Ridge Adventure Golf which we had built and still owned at the time. I gave them a tour of the facility and welcomed them to my studio here in Yarrow afterwards. The taxi driver waited patiently in the cab - with the meter running. As they left my new friend promised me that some day I would build a mini golf for him in Trinidad,

A few months later I received a call from him asking me to design a new sign system for his hospital. I obliged. Sadly the plan didn't go ahead, much to my client's regret but he promised me that we would still work together in the future. That proved to be true.

As we designed the centerpiece for the golf, a statue of Skallywag the pirate I remembered one element of the design I had done so long ago. It was to have been the centerpiece of a roundabout for the hospital. It featured a cute little fish and a multi-sided planter.

It was time to revive that idea - just for fun. The multi-sided planter had shrunk considerably and the sign was replaced by a pedestal on which the Skallywag statue will stand. The little fish replaced the starfish on four sides of the base. The skull and wrenches graced the other four faces.

Today, with great delight we applied the concrete and sculpted the base of the monument.

It will be the happy punchline to a story that began five years ago.