Within the serene neighborhood of Sherwood Park in Alberta, Canada, a 13-foot-high bronze-painted concrete sculpture was recently unveiled to commemorate the resiliency of Albertans throughout the hardships presented by the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
Its creation was funded by a local business owner who commissioned his own friends, a father-son sculptor duo, to craft the gargantuan symbol of Albertan perseverance.
Sherwood Park's Towering Sculpture, a Symbol of Albertan Tenacity
Don Lucas, the sole sponsor for the giant statue project, is the owner of the Edmonton-based transit business, "Encore Trucking and Transport."
According to his statement to the local publication CTV News, his inspiration for initiating the project was how Albertans "came through [COVID]" and how they survived it.
This is especially relevant after data on the disease's rising death toll was released pointing to a total of 55 deaths in the past two weeks.
The statue itself depicts a mother, a father, and their child atop the family horse braving the harshness of the cold winds.
Lucas explained that it was his dear friend Roger Shore, and his son Matthew, who was "crazy" and "creative" enough to take up the commission and turn it into a tangible product.
Matthew and his father had an easy time conceptualizing the piece as it is something that the common Albertan household is wrestling with right now, saying, "We thought it was a wonderful idea."
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A Local Community's 'Healing Moment'
According to the younger Shore, they worked on the project by visualizing it first through the creation of a "miniature version" that only measures around "nine-and-a-half inches, something they "scaled up" exponentially for the final version.
Matthew also added that it was first-ever experience working with concrete as a material which contributed to some challenges for the project, not to mention the difficulty of painting the whole sculpture in bronze.
That said, like the theme that they're trying to portray, the father-son artists powered through and completed Lucas' commission.
For the local business owner, this incredible artistic endeavor acted as a catalyst for their healing and a symbol of "pride."
He continued by saying that he hopes the same feeling is conveyed to would-be viewers of the piece, that they too can " find some perseverance inside themselves."
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