A herd of balloon animals has landed at Marina Park.
City officials installed 10 stone sculptures at the new Children’s Garden near the Tai Chi Park at Prince Arthur’s Landing on Wednesday. Vancouver artists Paul Slipper and Nadine Stefan created the sculptures to look like balloon animals.
Slipper said it took three months to cut and polish the stone to make it look as though they were weightless. It was interesting to travel across the country from Vancouver to Thunder Bay because everyone would come up to them and look at the sculptures, he said.
“This project had a very playful, a very sort of fun feel,” Slipper said. “We wanted to do try to make the stone have a feeling that would attract people and see if the stone is hollow by creating these balloon shapes.
“We want people to interact with the material to come in sit on them, touch them, jump on and play with the sculptures.”
Slipper said they used stones from Ontario as well as some from Brazil and Norway.
Reana Mussato, the city’s public art co-ordinator, said the total cost for the project was about more than $95,000, which included everything involved in the project from the artists’ fee, transportation, and the materials. She said the 10 sculptures would be one of the last art pieces to be installed at the park with only the twin beacons remaining.
She said it was important to have a piece that focused on children because they wanted to didn’t want art that exclusively appealed to adults.
“In total there are eight art pieces but that can sound misleading,” Mussato said. “You can have one project like the lanterns, which are three works of art.
“The word variety is pretty much key here. We wanted to offer up opportunities that are different sizes and different mediums. We really wanted to offer and show what you can do with public art.”
