Sea Monsters a/k/a Carousel Cosmos

In April 2023 I had the pleasure of making Sea Monsters for a public art display in Portland’s West End.  Chris Miller, the polymath maker, received the commission and hired me to help build seven creatures which likely could have lived on Portland’s Peninsula over the past 250-million years, give or take a few millennia, or even “just last Tuesday.”

“Carousel Cosmos” is the official title and the seven creatures are a Polar Bear, Humpback Whale, Saber Toothed Cat, Walrus, Rhyncosaur (an extinct herbivorous Triassic archosauromorph reptile), Dragon, Crenatocetus (an extinct genus of protocetid early whale).  

Chris wrote, “They are dragons, lions, bears and sea monsters, the usual suspects in the greatest bedtime stories of all time. They have many names in many languages. They’ve made cameos as constellations that might be older than writing, older than the first cities, or the wheel. Some are mythological, some are just misunderstood. They invite you to explore the cosmos starting right here, on a journey to greater understanding.”

One really must visit the installation, but at the least you can visit them online: http://npdworkshop.com/carousel-cosmos

We built the creatures using a “stack laminate” process just as carousel horses have been built since 1799:  layers of 8/4 ash (2” thick) were stacked then glued to create the three-dimensional form, which we then carved and painted.  With as many as nine layers per creature, Chris used computer modeling software to draw the final shape, then “deconstruct” it to show the shape of each successive layer. 

The son of a carpenter, Chris studied sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, and then architecture at MIT.  His vision is a unique combination of those three influences.  

The word “genius” normally is defined in terms of sheer intellectual horsepower – Newton and Einstein, the commonplace exemplars – but a more insightful meaning is in the derivation of the word, from Latin, which means “guiding spirit.”  

For having walked the hallowed halls among the MIT Masters, Chris has retained the childlike wonder of growing up amidst the flora and fauna, woods and water of Fifty Lakes, Crow Wing County, Minnesota.  His sterling genius guided him not only to conceive, design and build, but also to write this summary of the Carousel Cosmos:

“This carousel is inspired by kindness, adventure, outer space, bedtime stories, dinosaurs and ice cream. It’s inspired by the Western Promenade’s endless views, spectacular sunsets and contemplative atmosphere. It spins the way that the earth spins when the sun sets, in a place where trolleys used to stop, in a small picturesque city with a school community that speaks more than sixty different languages.”

Lest anyone think my statements are grandiose rather than grounded, I submit this photo as Exhibit A:

Climb aboard! Let’s go for a spin!!