So what do you do when it breaks?
Call it good luck or good planning, we’ve gone the better part of ten years with only one serious accident. That one was the result of poor planning. I was delivering a two piece clam shell to an up scale downtown hotel about 7 years ago. Instead of placing a non slip divider between the two pieces as I carted them off to the set up location I laid them together flat ice on ice. Five feet into my journey and the top half slipped off smashing into a hundred… no a thousand pieces. And there wasn’t even anyone else with me to blame. What can you say? They were forgiving and still a good customer.
But this weekend was a first. Another up scale hotel (I assured them their name would stay off the page) and high end client. Valerie, (my wife and favourite delivery help) came along at my last minute request. We’ve done this so many times that all the usual things that can go wrong were looked after. It was an 11 piece on-site assembly of a high rise building sculpture. We even set it up in the studio to ensure everything would fit on site. We put non slip material between each piece for the trip up to the hotel rooftop.
All set up in the studio freezer
The high rise sculpture was tall and hollow. These kinds are too heavy to carve solid. Everything was going well with all of the big side panels up already. Valerie had her arms around the front to stabilize the sculpture while I made last minute adjustments. Just a little tap here and a little tap there to make sure the joints fit well when it happened. One second I was bent over scrutinizing the last joint and the next I’m staring at blood pouring from my head all over the white table cloth and sculpture. It looked like a 9 on the Richter scale had just hit the high rise. And blood just wouldn’t stop oozing out of the 3″ gash to my head.
No stitches needed!
First aid wasn’t long in showing up and taking over. But we did have time to decide on a plan without tossing the whole sculpture. Valerie headed down to the freezer with the two pieces of a broken panel where she stayed and held them in place for 20 minutes. And I got my head fixed so I could start over again, putting the pieces back in place, this time with those all important non slip pads under the foot of the sculpture. (Can you recognize an all important theme here? I should have known that ice on a plastic tray is going to slip). Then I rescued my dear wife and building panel from the freezer and CAREFULLY put it back in place… with no last minute adjusting. See of you can spot the fuse line. And none of the guests even knew it happened. Incredible!
Can you see the break?
P.S. We didn’t know it at the time but the tray got punctured in two places during the accident. And you guessed it, none of the melt water never made it to the bucket under the table…
More to come from #theicemen!