The Big Move Again

It sat on the Bayfront here in Sarasota for 7 months, but today finally came. We had to move Pulse to a new home. That new home turned out to be the Sarasota-Bradenton campus of the University of South Florida, maybe five miles up the road. I was on hand in case they had any structural problems with the piece, but everything went extremely smooth. That meant that I got to stand around and take pictures the whole time. Pretty much a win-win situation for me. The first shot above is the crane getting ready to make the first hop with the sculpture. It weighed about seven thousand pounds, so we couldn't pick it up and set it directly on the truck. Doing so would have exceeded the safe load limits on the mobile crane and possibly created a disaster. So we picked it up and set it right next to the road while we waited for the truck to arrive.

This shot is just to prove we got it off the ground. And no, we didn't knock that pole over. It was down when I got there. Which isn't to say it didn't get knocked down by somebody earlier, but it wasn't knocked over by Pulse.

And there's the truck. The local police came out and stopped traffic long enough for us to load it up. Which was pretty nice of them since this is US 41, a pretty major road. The truck was a little late because of all the traffic created by the fire the previous day on I-75. That's got things snarled up for miles and miles around.

I'm pretty sure this is the same truck we used to move Pulse the first time...

There's your friendly artist Christine Desiree being interviewed by local cable news channel SNN 6. I tried to find the video at their website, but I couldn't. (The big news coverage happened at the other end of the journey.) That's the director of the Sarasota Season of Sculpture 4, Brenda Terris, standing to the left. I don't remember there being much media presence when we first installed the cube, so I don't know why there was all the hubbub about the removal.

Here's an echo of the shot I took when we installed the cube last year. In the foreground is Christine's piece from Season of Sculpture 3, High Voltage. It's in a sculpture garden at the Ringling School of Art and Design (her alma mater). I think this version of the shot works better than the other one. The light is a little better, as is the angle and composition.

Here we are blocking all the traffic as we made a big U-turn. This is in front of the new home for the sculpture, which is right across US 41 from the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport. You'll be able to see it quite easily when you fly in or out. It's so close that an airport cop came over and asked how high the crane was going to be. I guess the answer satisfied him, since he left us alone.

There's the spot they had laid out for Pulse. They did a nice job, considering they only had about 24 hours to get ready.

In case you're looking for it, it's at the corner of Edward and Tamiami Trail. And for those of you who don't know, Tamiami Trail is US 41.

Here's she comes...

And we're done.

Once Pulse was safely in place, the dancing girls came out. Or dancing girl I should say. That's Blythe, Brian and Christine's daughter. She just couldn't get her picture taken enough. I'm greatly relieved that the move went as smoothly as it did. Hopefully, Pulse will be on this spot for a long, long time to come.