PORT ANGELES — After going through 116 panels of laminated particle board, 16 gallons of wood glue and 14,000 pounds of concrete, Port Angeles artist Alex Anderson can call his three-year concrete sculpture project complete.
Just more than a dozen onlookers watched as Anderson’s 12-foot-tall, 4-foot-thick concrete sculpture of a whale vertebra was lowered into its new home just east of the covered area of Valley Creek Estuary Park on Front Street on Wednesday.
The unnamed 7-ton piece is the 27th permanent installation in Port Angeles’ Art on the Town outdoor sculpture gallery.
A crane from Millican Crane Service, based in Poulsbo, lifted the sculpture from the back of a flatbed truck parked on the dry grass of the vacant lot next to the estuary park.
Workers from Alex Anderson Concrete gently pushed the piece into position.
With steady movements of the crane operator’s wrists beckoning it, the machine lowered the sculpture into a 3-foot-deep hole that had been dug to receive the installation.
“I’m happy,” Anderson said as he looked on the sculpture finally in its resting place.
The piece, a $65,000 gift to downtown Port Angeles’ art collection funded by an anonymous donor, took Anderson about three years and nine months to complete.
Anderson’s partner, Dani LaBlond, said that Anderson was inspired by gray whale bones on display at the Makah Cultural and Research Museum at Neah Bay, although the sculpture is not supposed to be an anatomically correct representation of a whale vertebra.
“Once he actually saw what the [whale] bone looked like, he thought, ‘That would make a cool sculpture,’” LaBlond said.
Where the relatively thin spinal cord would run in a real whale vertebra, Anderson chose to create a 4-foot hole so the piece can be used as a bench.
The sculpture will also be planted firmly enough in the ground so children can play on it, LaBlond said.
“It’s supposed to allow the viewer to participate in the piece instead of just looking at it,” LaBlond said.
Anderson used 116 panels of laminated particle board and 16 gallons of wood glue to build a positive, or wooden replica of what the sculpture would finally look like, LaBlond explained.
From there, Anderson made a fiberglass mold of the positive and filled it with 14,000 pounds of concrete, specially treated with a black dye to make the dried color a darker gray.
LaBlond said Anderson has always been interested in animal bones and was thrilled to create something that combines his artistic side with his day job as owner of Alex Anderson Concrete.
Photos of the construction process can be seen at Anderson’s website, www.alexandersonconcrete.com. Click on the “More” button to access the photos.
To reach Alex Anderson Concrete, phone 360-452-6659.
Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
