Teddy Bears
Guest User
The project began as an unusual request for an enormous granite teddy bear. Our client was the head of a large Dallas-based development company, avid art collector, and traveler for whom we had done one other project in the previous year.
In this case our clients' project manager handled all of the details and arrangements for the entire project aside from the sculptural aspects. This was a rather large public art project that involved the client, town council, mayor and Park Advisory Board, residents of the community, as well as landscape architect, general contractor, and an engineering firm. Our client was donating the sculptures to the community.
Our task was to create the focal point of the park. The largest of the group of bears was ten feet tall and weighed nearly twenty tons, but next to a next large body of water and trees, its scale was perfect. This bear needed to maintain a fluffy, friendly, toy-like softness or its size would frighten the children it was meant to please, and it presented an interesting sculptural challenge. Also critical to the overall "feel" of the sculptures was texture. Rough enough to simulate a stuffed toy, but smooth enough to climb on. The features - eyes, nose, and footpads - were all polished for contrast and to reveal the true color of each of the different granites.