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Wiry T-rex sculpture going up on bay site
by Barbara Henry, The Times-Standard
Elizabeth Berrien shows progress on a Tyrannosaurus rex she's building for a Disney World project.
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EUREKA - With steady hands sculptor Elizabeth Berrien hoists nearly 50 pounds of twisted wire into the air on Friday. Though only partly complete, Berrien's newest sculpture - a toothsome Tyrannosaurus rex - dwarfs her. When it's done, this wire creature will stand eight feet tall and weigh 70 to 80 pounds.
"I would call this a six-to-eight month project and I've only had one-and-a-half months to work on it," Berrien said."It's a rush job, a special order from a San Francisco architect who needs a dinosaur for a display at an executive meeting room at Disney World."
"He called in November and said he knew it was short notice and asked if I'd ever done a dinosaur," Berrien said.His firm, Gensler Associates, had seen some of her wire animals in an advertising flyer and decided to dump a planned balsa wood dinosaur project in favor of a Berrien wire creation.
"These things do have a reputation for combatting viewer fatigue," Berrien said, after recalling one project she did for the Louisville airport. "The first day several people missed flights - but they didn't complain."
Berrien expects to finish twisting the final strands of wire at her workshop at the Blue Ox Millworks in mid-February. Then, she has to put T-rex on a plane bound for Orlando. "we'll do it like we did with the giraffe," she said, "We'll take it to the Arcata airport and put a baggage tag on it and start folding." Once Berrien arrives in Orlando, she'll calim T-rex from baggage claim and start bending it back into shape. "after we unfold and get it positioned right, then we're going to go on a few rides," she said.
Meanwhile, T-rex will hang suspended from six cables in the meeting room. In its claws, the dinosaur will hold giant McDonalds food containers - the conference room is named the "McDonald's Room". Berrien isn't troubled about the commercialization of her work. She sees the job as "a great lark with good pay". She'll make $19,000 for her dinosaur and an extra set of dinosaur arms. She also received two plane tickets to Disney World, and a living allowance while she's there.
T-rex is one of the biggest projects she has done in her 30 years of sculpting animals. Her career began with a lumpy wire cat that she still keeps to show children that art can come from humble beginnings.
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T-rex, ready to go!
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World Class Wire Sculpture · Elizabeth Berrien
Inquiries: (707) 445-4931 · Email: wirezoo@earthlink.net
Content and images copyright © 1968-2006 Elizabeth Berrien. All rights reserved.
Updated Jan 5, 2006 · this page valid HTML 4.01
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