Jay's Tigers accompany him to his 50th Princeton Reunion

      Before heading off to Reunions I stopped to give the '66 Hitch Hiking Tiger a lift.  Being a bit of a wild animal he was happy to ride outside. I had just finished sculpting his friend the B-Ball Tiger and didn't have time to put on his coat so he lay down inside the van where nobody would see him.  

Waiting to get on the Ferry in Vineyard Haven

My friend Ned helped unload the B-Ball Tiger and bring him into the Reunion site.

   It was fun painting the orange coat and black stripes on the B-Ball Tiger with lots of people around to talk to.

Most people didn't realize you could spin the basketball

Even the couple getting married had to get their picture with the '66 Tiger

At night the Tigers were at the center of the action.

Sometimes it is nice having the '66 Tiger as your buddy

The B-Ball Tiger and the '66 Hitch Hiking Tiger led the Class of 1966 in the P-Rade

It is a long march when you are at your 50th.  But the younger classes are generous with their beer and the Tigers were thirsty

After finishing the P-Rade the '66 Tigers hung around a while for pictures.  

On the way back to the 50th Reunion Site the '66 Tigers stopped off at the Princeton University Art Museum

     It was a wonderful Reunion.  By the time you make it to your 50th you tend to be happy to be alive and glad to see your classmates.  The weather was hot but sunny and beautiful.  And, of course, the P-Rade is a blast.  It is wonderful to be cheered.

    On the long drive home after Sunday Brunch at the Boathouse almost every time I stopped I ran into another Princetonian also returning from Reunions.  On the ferry to the Vineyard the couple two cars behind me had taken a picture of their daughter,  class 2011, and her fiance '13 with the '66 Hitch Hiking Tiger.  So I borrowed their phone to take a picture of them with the '66 Tiger which they texted to their daughter.

   
     I loved taking the road trip with the Tigers.  They seem to bring smiles and happiness whereever they go.  I guess they are just a couple of Party Animals.

Swinging Jenny is "Huge!"

For the first time I get to see the Man standing up, even if he is headless

    This is the first time I have ever seen the man's body standing up.     I have a 10' ceiling in my studio so I was never able to stand up the working model and see how tall it feels.

 When I worked on the whole body of the figure it was in the horizontal position.

   At the ART Foundry they hoisted up Jenny so I could get an idea of how it will feel.  She will actually be a couple of feet higher and the arms will meet and be welded together.  They couldn't get the position any better without redoing the sling and moving a lot of stuff to get the two cranes close enough together.  Not worth the bother.  There was too much real work to do.

      There was a lot of engineering to figure out how to make the sculpture strong enough so that it is safe to have Jenny cantilevered out twenty two feet from the leaning back man.  Inside the bronze casting they have to fit an armature of heavy stainless steel pipe ranging from 6" in diameter and almost 1" thick walls in the man's legs  tapering down to 2.5” dia SCH80 (2.88”x0.276”) in Jenny's torso.  

      The amount of work they have to do to get the pipe inside the sculpture is amazing to me.  First they tack weld the cast bronze sections together to create the proper shape.  Not an easy job since the man was cast in 25 separate pieces and the Jenny in 19 pieces.   Putting these back together to recreate the shape of the working model that I made back in my studio was no easy task.  Then they have to take off the outer cast bronze sections so they can fit sections of the stainless steel armature into the sculpture and weld them together as well as to the bronze outer shell.

Welding the stainless steel armature in place.  Lying on the floor are the cast bronze pieces that will be welded back over the armature.

Jenny's braids were cast separately from the head.  With my guidance they tack welded them into just the right place.

     We did a test of patinas.  You can also get a good idea of what the texture looks like.

So which patina do you like best?