This post is sixth in a series about Sky Portal in Albuquerque, New Mexico

The metal cylinder is 8 feet across and it’s probably close to 5 feet tall, not including the weaving.  The weaving brings it higher–I think it could almost be a cube, maybe 7 feet. 

So I had to make a crate to ship it to Albuquerque.  And of course that was kind of an afterthought.  Everybody’s focused on the sculpture including me, and at some point you’ve gotta get this thing there.  And I thought, I can figure it out, I’ve built crates before.  Well, that was one of the most challenging crates I’ve ever seen. I mean, first of all, you can’t just turn this thing around and then see if it fits.  You need a crane and a forklift to move it.  And you have finished surfaces that you’re trying not to mar.  And it’s heavy!

I did a lot of drawing before I built this thing.  And the biggest challenge was the way it was going to be shipped.  There were two alternatives for shipping.  One is a covered truck, a semi, and the other is a flatbed with no cover.  The cost difference between those two methods was in the thousands.  I didn’t want to pay that.  So the thing miraculously would fit in an enclosed semi, but it obviously had to be a certain dimension–there’s a certain requirement for it to get in.  Anyway, we’re talking about a half inch.  I had to build this thing to within a half inch or it would literally not fit on that truck.  And there was no room at all for any error.  I mean, the thing has to be protected and stable in there, so it was like a small building:  it had bracing, and I had to devise a system to undo it and do it and where the forklift blades would go, and… I mean, it was crazy.  And really the true test is when it got on the truck.  That was really anxiety-producing! 

And it didn’t stop–when it got on the truck, it was a victory for sure, but then it had to drive all the way to New Mexico, and then it had to be offloaded, and it had to be unpacked, and then it had to be put in place, which was yet to be determined.  It took a very large crane and a lot of hours and a lot of people working in a lot of heat.

The other thing is, this thing has gotta hang precisely in the center of this 70-foot circle, right?  And there are variations–think about these poles.  They’re on base plates.  The base plates fit over bolts that have been pre-cast into concrete.  The bolts are an inch in diameter, and there’s four of them per pole.  There cannot be very much give on those.  And if they were cast at the wrong angle, then the pole is going to be at the wrong angle.  And if it’s just a little bit off, by the time it reaches 25 feet tall, it’s a lot off.

Thankfully, they were not off.  Some of them were hard to fit over the bolts–I mean, out of 24, you’re bound to get a few, and some of them slipped right on, some of them took 2 hours.  And to get the levels, the elevations of those all correct, and their angle as they relate to the center, and then not only that, but then you think about the cable.  I had to order cable.  That’s a lot of cable.  And it’s stainless steel cable, and it has fittings on each end that are pneumatically attached.  Permanent.  And at one end there’s a turnbuckle, so you can adjust the cable.  But it has to be within a certain range.  If you’re off on one of those cables, then the cable is unusable.  You have to get a new one.  And we’re not talking about $50 or $100 for each of them.  The fittings alone were $50, just on one end, minimum.  They’re all stainless steel.  So anyway, to settle on a dimension for that cable took me a week.  I avoided it–just didn’t want to commit to a length, because I knew once I did, they would be in production, and there was no going back.

And to account for weight–how much that cylinder would sag under its own weight–that was something else that came into effect with the cable.  I mean there’s a lot there that really can cause anxiety! 

I still usually end up in the same situation with different things.  But I do learn lessons.  Now I build in systems of checking, or kind of secondary systems where if this is off, I still have this.  I’ve gotten smarter about that because at the beginning, there was just no leeway.  It had to be perfect or it wouldn’t work.  

Albuquerque, public art, sky portal