Stubborn Stag

Today I volunteered to hang up art work at Lucas' school. They are setting up an art gallery of sorts in the school lobby to show off the students' work. It seemed simple enough. Put some tape on the back of art pieces and stick them to the wall.

When I got to school, I met the art teacher Teresa who seemed really relieved that SOMEONE had signed up to help. Instead of papers to hang up, she started pulling out large boxes of what looked like recycling... soda bottles, milk jugs, straws, yogurt cups. I thought for a second that there was a miscommunication. I did not sign up for clean up crew.

Then Teresa pulled the pieces out of the boxes and told me that the students had worked on "found object" art. They had made birds of all different shapes, sizes, and species out of objects that would have been recycled anyway. Some of them looked exactly like birds and some looked like robot birds. The students found creative ways to use foil and doilies for wings and feathers. They used the spiral binding from a notebook to form talons... it was pretty cool.



The assignment was to hang the bird sculptures from the large wooden beams above the school lobby. Just when I was wondering which one of us was going to be climbing the ladder about 45 times to get the birds way, way up there, the school Principal appeared and introduced us to Steve. Because of a mix-up at the school district office, Steve showed up at our school as a substitute even though no had called for one. The Principal was nice enough to lend Steve to us to help. And he was really tall! Eureka!

While Teresa and I tried to get string around these intricate birds to get ready for hanging, Steve volunteered to do the climbing and the hanging. Teresa suggested that Steve secure the pins into the wood FIRST and then hang the birds after. I thought that was a good idea since it would make spacing the pins a lot easier. Steve said he could handle climbing the ladder, push pin in hand, with a bird sculpture hanging from the push pin, and securing the push pin into the dense wooden beam...all at the same time. Teresa and I trusted that he knew what he was doing.

CRASH! A bird fell down hard on the lobby floor. It came apart in 3 pieces.
"That one was way too heavy," commented Steve, calmly. I saw Teresa's eyes were wide with disbelief. I said nothing. But she replied just as calmly, "They are quite delicate too. It's okay. I can fix it." Accidents happen, I thought.

We continued with our roles: Teresa and I stringing the birds while Steve climbed and hung the birds. CRASH... a second bird fell down. This one miraculously survived the fall except one eye came off and had to be glued back. "That wooden beam is really hard. It's got several knots!" That was all Steve could explain. Teresa just muttered, "MmmHmmm." She is sooo nice. I would be pissed. After the third and fourth bird came down, Teresa once again suggested nicely that securing the push pins before hanging the birds might prevent more mishaps. Steve's response: "Ahhh, I'm alright!"

More crashes occured. So during the course of 3 hours, Teresa and I mended birds as well as strung them. 45 sculptures were finally hung up... some of them were hung up 3 or 4 times by Steve before they finally stayed. Where did they find this guy?