We had a crane operator come out between 2 AM and 5 AM on Monday morning (July 6, 2009) to put the 2 steel frames in. And a thunder and lightning storm started right then. It was perfect. But now the frames are in, and we're building the shoes and legs around it.

Of course, actually building this is the final stage of a project that's been about 2 years in the making. We've had a lot of help from Edmonton companies; everyone has been so gracious. Stantec donated the engineering for the steel frames. PCL donated cement and labour to help us get the footings ready, which go down about 5 feet. ETS has been super helpful too, and so has Absolute Fusion (they're based out of Red Deer), who welded up the frames and helped us coordinate moving all the bricks up from Red Deer and installing the steel frames.

Yeah, there are a lot of bricks involved. They came to us wet in Red Deer. On 16 pallets. And each pallet weighed about 2 tons. We had to store them inside so they didn't freeze. Then we basically had a wood template and drawings, and we laid out the bricks in an organized fashion - sort of like making a Lego construction of the foot. We went over it with a range of tools and scraped and honed the shape of the shoe out. Then we took apart the whole thing and labeled each brick so we would know where it should go when we started building, and now we're here, actually building it. You could say we have a lot of patience.

But it's for a great project. Edmontonians are letting us push the edge of what sculpture can be and what people can be challenged by. They're really adventurous and outgoing and willing to stick their necks out a little bit. I think lots of people love the idea and they get the humorous possibilities. It captures people's imagination. You know, it makes people smile...in a good way.

It's something for the community to lean on, literally. They'll be able to sit on the toe. Right on the toe. Waiting for the bus at Southgate. It's like having a giant friend waiting for you - you're not alone at the bus stop. It kind of pays homage to the average person who comes by here every day on their daily routine. Yeah, Dawn and I hope it makes people happy and excited. Not in a jumping up and down kind of way, but just that having something fun to walk by makes people's lives nicer. If they're having a doldrumy day, they can come by and, you know, it'll make them smile. If this just makes one person smile, it's really worth it.