Daisy

There are some projects which are just too cool to turn down. Liz Thompson approached me with this ‘top secret’ idea of the highest priority, while our other projects were just getting rolling. “Can you build this?” she asked. “yup” I said without hesitation. It looked like too much fun not to at least try, and with Sequoia Fabumni’s help, I knew we could figure it out.

So while him and Carter were hot-wiring the columns, I set to work wrapping my head around how to construct this gargantuan man-eating flower. I started with a cardboard model, to figure out the skeleton. We did not have time or access to welding supplies, but we did have plywood. Once I had the structure together, Sequoia and I had our longest day thus far, hot-wiring, and gluing together all of the strange shapes which would fill in the base, the vine, and the head.

After we got the shapes roughed out, it was time to finish the columns, so Daisy got put on the back burner until they were deployed. Our friends in the Art collective Wake the Giant offered to help with the basalt column installation so with only 48 hours to go until gates opened, we got to carving. Sequoia hand carved and applied each individual spike and tooth, while I dialed in the body, head and tongue. Two very late nights later and we had her carved, and coated with our makeshift polymer coating.

Guild artist Andreanne came in to help with some clutch sanding, while Graham and John Wilson from Wake the Giant helped paint, and countless others offered moral support as Sequoia and I pushed through the finishing touches.

Early entry gates had just opened when we walked Daisy to her sump-pump pedestal, right where festival goers emerged from the new tunnel and entered the grounds for the first time. The smiles and hollers when she took her throne, made the whole undertaking well worth the effort.