PART SIX: THE INSTALLATION   2009

• The Packing and Transport

  Now for the anxiety provoking part. The sculpture has been standing immobile on its carving base and pin for almost three years now. Much of its size has been cut away at the bottom. Much of its weight is now in the top half. How does one lift up the carving (1) without breaking the now fragile base area, or (2) without allowing the top heavy piece to flip over bottoms up. At 1,350 pounds one, or two, or even three people cannot do much to keep it from moving where it wants to go. That fact is stimulus for a lot of careful thought with a bit of anxiety thrown in for seasoning.

• The Delivery and Installation

  Creating Structural Floor Support

  We arrive late at night (way later than we promised) to discover that the piece will rest on a tile floor supported by a main beam that the heating contractors previously cut in half in order to push their vent pipe through—not adequate support for a sculpture and base weighing almost a ton. So, after a short night’s sleep, it's into the crawl space for a pleasant morning of clawing in the dirt, shoring and bracing and wedging to keep the floor from becoming a crater.

Padding and Engine Hoist Work

Let the photos tell the story. A lot of slow steps in the process of moving something into the home entry way that is too massive for human muscles alone. Fine, let’s learn a bit about leverage, a whole high school course in physics crammed into one short afternoon!

Installing on Base Pin

Again, the trick is to get the piece hanging free, perfectly vertical, so that the pin slides into the base without putting any pressure on the side of the sculpture. You only find out that you were allowing too much sideways torque when the feet crack off. That’s a bit late at this stage in the game!

• The Completion and Celebration

The sculpture slides into place exactly as planned.
After nine years of planning and working it is finally in place—
presented with love, and yes fervent hope that this particular
musician won't need to change homes anytime soon.

KOKOPHILI: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6