Progression of the Muskox – Part Two

Mike welding.

So we made the return journey back to Cambridge Bay in the middle of March to complete our sculpture and this time around we decided to split the lads into two groups and have them come in for one week each.

For the first week we had Keenan, Brandon, Bradley and Mike (sadly we only had our main man Keenan for a couple of days as he had to deal with a toothache from hell!) then for the second week we had Robert, Daryl and Andrew.  It was really nice to catch up with them again and pick up where we left off, they’re an awesome bunch of young men and we really valued getting to know them.

We cracked on with getting tons more strapping onto the frame of the muskox and added lots of welding to the horns.  The guys had the challenge of using the gasless welder as the original one was waiting on a part, but this was good practice/experience for them. They learnt how to cut out a knife from some old leaf spring steel and use the Oxygen and Acetylene torch to heat it then give’er some serious hammering, lots and lots of hammering (sure glad my earplugs were in place!).  This process enabled them to work together to get their blade just right and ready for sharpening.  Brandon’s keen eye and thinking led him to find some great pieces of old flooring to use for the handle, worked a treat!

Brandon (L) and Bradley(R) working.

 

Robert, Andrew & Daryl – hammering!!

All his cute feet are done!

Didn’t they do well! (Daryl, Andrew & Robert)

Its amazing how quickly time flew by, it got a little scary as the amount of work required to finish this sculpture was not for the faint of heart!  Completion happened on the second to last day after 16 hours straight (for Kerry, I was done at like 10hrs sadly) – etched in his mind forever is the 1 April 1.00am!  Woohoo…exhausted but satisfied!!

Wait and see…

I really must say that after tackling our biggest project to date I am in awe of Kerry’s astounding artistic talent and vision that enabled him to not only create a beautiful life size creature from essentially nothing, but in addition, translate life, animation, motion and strength into it, with his bare hands ….. personally, this really reinforces why I love our facebook page profile pic of his hands with the little bird, it just encapsulates what I witnessed!!