Will Paint For Food

After Shea and Nick spent a day improving the viewscape at the site (cutting trees and pulling privet), work continued apace on panel prep/painting. Aided by recent UTC graduate Lindsey Cochran, Team BFRP (Tanya Dickenson, Lindsay Roden, Meredith Gilligan, and Frances, Nick, Zach, and Katherine) have  completed approximately half of the panels this week.

Tanya, Meredith, and Lindsay painting a section of the pictograph.

Lindsey and Nick do the same.

To enhance the artistic experience, and fuel the furnace, as it were, Nick labored many long hours in his kitchen baking two deep dish crew pizzas. They didn't last long...

Mmmmm...

A tentative hang date of December 29 is being proposed, followed by a New Year's Eve unveiling. Garnet Chapin of the Parks Foundation is coordinating this event with Mark Making, as it will also involve the Walnut Street Bridge Plaque Replacement Project kickoff event. This concatenation of Parks Foundation-sponsored projects should result in an impressive media-heavy unveiling.

Team BFRP has been considerably enhanced with the addition of some major climbing expertise in the form of Jerry McClanahan and Patrick O'Brien, pictured below. Both are veteran climbers, and both have volunteered as riggers when we hang the fabric. This is a good thing, as everyone else on the team (except possibly Zach) is terrified of climbing the frame.

Jerry McClanahan, Patrick O'Brian: Furnace Climbers.

Jerry was able to visit the site with us and inspect the frame. We also brought out a panel and suspended it from the bottom of the frame to get another reality check on the background color on-site.

Today we began working on our version of the 1856 furnace image as well as the main title panel. We finally are seeing an end to the fabrication phase, though much still needs to be done.

Zach and Katherine with the title panel.