PORT TOWNSEND — If you saw a fork in the road and it was 14 feet long and speeding southward, you saw the work of Port Townsend sculptor Lucy Congdon Hanson, who shipped her piece to the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art last week to be displayed in the main lobby through Feb. 4.
The colossal cutlery, titled “Serve,” weighs 600 pounds and is crafted from 20 hand-cut panels of marine-grade stainless steel, said Bonnie Obremski, marketing and communications manager at Centrum.
Congdon Hanson, 53, carried the dream of the fantastic flatware in her mind for a year, until she hired Walter Trisdale, 58, also of Port Townsend, to take a stab at assisting her as she made her fork a fact.
“I explained to my friend Walt my idea of building this large-scale fork jutting out of the ground and shared with him the scale drawings and maquettes I had made in my studio,” Congdon Hanson told Obremski.
“I have a silverware fetish. I’ve been making large spoons out of bronze — 4-foot spoons, 2-foot spoons, 8-foot spoons and forks and knives that are larger than life.”
Congdon Hanson — a mother to daughters Harper, 13, and Lark, 10 — said the curvaceous figure of the fork references femininity and a woman nourishing her family.
At nearly three times the height of the average woman, however, “it’s also a really brave little girl sort of shouting,” she said.
Trisdale is a marine diesel mechanic, welder, fabricator and teacher. He worked side by side with Congdon Hanson, following her aesthetic direction, to construct a work of art that is not only visually appealing but rust-resistant and capable of withstanding hurricane-force winds, Obremski said.
“I jumped at the chance to work with Lucy, because she has an incredible eye for curves. The challenge of building this thing was something that I could not resist,” Trisdale said.
“Most of my creative work has been functional pieces for boats, like rigging hardware on [the schooner] Adventuress,” he continued. “The fork was lofted, like a boat would be, and built on a mold, also like a boat.”
Of working with Congdon Hanson, he said, “I was amazed at how much energy and sweat Lucy was willing to put into the making of the fork. She is a blast to work with. We are a good team.”
Six Pacific Northwest artists visited Congdon Hanson just before Trisdale loaded the sculpture onto a trailer using, you guessed it, a forklift.
Those visiting artists occupy studios at Centrum for the month of October as part of its Emerging Artist Residency program, Obremski said.
They will display their own work at an open studio event from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28, at Fort Worden State Park, 200 Battery Way.
Martha Worthley, who manages the Emerging Artist Residency, told Obremski she was excited to introduce the artists to Congdon Hanson and Trisdale.
“I am just completely amazed and fascinated by the combining of Port Townsend maritime traditions with contemporary visual art,” Worthley said.
“Many of these artists are thinking, ‘How do you make things in the world?’ ‘How do you collaborate?’ ‘How do you get things done?’ Here is an incredible example.”
Centrum Emerging Artist Mario Lemafa, 27, of Seattle said he appreciated the shop visit. Lemafa, who was born in Hawaii, describes himself as a “queer, indigenous artist.” His creates multi-disciplinary, conceptual artwork.
“Port Townsend seems to have a wealth of knowledge bases that artists can look toward,” he said. “I thought it was generous of Lucy and Walt to describe their methods and artistic process from the beginning stages of their project to the piece we were able to see.”
As for the idea of an artist contracting a tradesperson, Lemafa said, “Artists are often seen as working and thinking in creative silos. While this may be true for some, a great deal of work, especially those of an ambitious nature, could only ever be produced with the skills and experiences of others combined. Our studio tour with Lucy and Walt perfectly demonstrated this.”
Anna Mlasowsky, 32, of Seattle, a multidisciplinary visual artist who was born and raised in Germany, could see common threads between one of her current projects and “Serve.”
“At Centrum, one of my pieces in progress is the creation of a large rock form based on a small found rock,” Mlasowsky said. “Taking measurements, determining angles and scaling the small paper model to an almost 6-foot cardboard form is time-consuming and challenging. Lucy walked us through her process of how she and Walt scaled up the fork and how that translation helped abstract it into a female figure for her. Watching how she did the process I am currently engaged in, with so much precision and care, was inspiring for my own work.”
As the young artists gazed up at the towering tines of “Serve,” Congdon Hanson handed out doughnuts, coffee and strawberries, and asked each of them to talk about their work.
“My words of wisdom to all of them would be to keep going,” Congdon Hanson said. “Invest in your own curiosity; it will never end.”
Bonnie Obremski (2) Lucy Congdon Hanson leans against “Serve,” her 14-foot-tall fork. Below, Hanson and Walt Trisdale pose with their cutlery creation.
