PORT TOWNSEND — A newly installed public sculpture has been repaired after an act of vandalism called attention to a potentially dangerous defect.
“All’s well that ends well. He did us a favor,” said artist Matt Babcock of the still unidentified vandal.
“There could have been a problem if the wind had blown the clock down.”
The sculpture “Great Blue” — a 12-foot-tall abstract representation of a Great Blue Heron with a clock attached to its beak — was repaired Monday.
A dedication ceremony is scheduled for 2 p.m. May 9.
The day after it was installed in front of the Port Townsend Community Center at 620 Tyler St., on April 15, city officials received reports of paper taped to the clock face.
When Operations Manager John Merchant climbed up to remove the paper, he noticed that the clock was improperly attached to the sculpture.
Merchant removed the 10-pound aluminum analog clock, which Babcock took to his studio for repair.
“The clock that I got from the vendor was defective,” Babcock said. “The attachment wasn’t made properly.
“I didn’t notice it when I put it up. We only discovered it when we were trying to remove the paper.”
Babcock returned the clock to Port Townsend on Monday and Merchant immediately reattached it to the sculpture.
Babcock said the new attachment will withstand high levels of wind.
“If that clock comes loose now, it will be after all the trees in the neighborhood have been blown down,” he said.
Babcock said the clock contains an array of lithium batteries expected to last five years.
A satellite connection ensures the display of the correct time and an adjustment to daylight savings time.
The lights in the clock face are powered by an electrical wire leading from the adjacent recreation center.
Babcock said the clock does not use electrical power for its operation because the time would need manual adjustment, which requires removing the clock face, after every power failure.
Port Townsend Police Detective Luke Bogues said the vandal has not been identified and the case is currently inactive but that would change if the person repeats the action.
“If he chooses to do anything else, he could be charged with malicious mischief,” Bogues said.
“If he does anything that makes it necessary for public works crews to repair, then he will be charged because he would be wasting city resources and our tax dollars.”
The city paid $20,000 for the sculpture, allocated through a program that allocates 1 percent of sales tax money for public art.
This was the second attempt to place a piece of public art in the uptown neighborhood, and the first such action since the Salish Sea Circle was installed at Pope Marine Park in 2011.
The first call for artists took place in July 2012, which drew 17 proposals and a selection of six finalists all of whom provided refined proposals that October.
After a review of the proposals, the art selection panel determined that none of the proposals should be recommended for acquisition and reissued a more specific call for artists that better represented the neighborhood.
The panel developed a revised and refined call for artists that was issued in Nov. 2013, which drew 29 submissions that were narrowed down to three finalists.
In a unanimous vote on July 2014 the city’s Art Commission selected Babcock’s piece and commissioned him for its completion.
Babcock said the piece took about three months to build.
For more information about the Port Townsend Arts Commission, see http://tinyurl.com/PDN-ptarts.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
