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[Eliza Thomason]

I just found an easy-to-share piece of my artwork.

So awhile back I participated in a huge citywide art event in my hometown where I used to live. This was like nothing I had ever done before. I entered some sketches on a whim, and was super- excited to get a commission from our nuclear power plant to make their bench. Some of us artists were a little dissatisfied with the bench style, but they sure did a great job working with it, and some were super-creative skilled sculptors who changed the style amazingly. Just wow.

I just painted. But I could not reconcile the base or the entire back with my design. So I learned how to fiberglass from a boat maker on YouTube; a big first for me, and smoothed out the offending framework before I began painting. Also I had to first create a heatable workshop in my garage, since it was dead winter when we worked on the benches and I could not get the big bench to my basement. I cordoned off an area of the big, high garage with plastic sheeting.

It was such an honor to be a part of this amazing event. So many awesome and beautiful entries. There were many professional artists; I was one of the many amateurs. But I was proud of how it turned out, just like I had planned. (Just a darker and deeper in color than my first design, because that is what they asked). Also it was placed in a great spot for the months-long event, in front of the big downtown library. Now it sits in the power plant lobby.

So I could not find a picture of the bench, at home or online, where I used to be able to see it. But I did find a great video online about the whole event that I had never seen before. It features all the benches. Here is is, below.

So there are a lot of benches and this glimpse of my bench is just three seconds. Mine is the blue bench sitting next to the yellow smile bench, right after the first minute of video. That's all! But if you are an artist, or just like art, you will find the whole video really interesting. There are so many spectacular benches. We all started with the same plain white fiber glass bench. Many are just painted, like mine, but also many have been sculpted amazingly. We all took them to be clear-coated in autobody shops so they can take the weather. The video was such great memories. I know every single one of those places, and I met a lot of those artists, like those two guys who did all those benches, they were great. Also all the organizers were fantastic. What an amazing event to be a part of.

The video of the benches is on this page: https://www.pbs.org/video/wxxi-presents-benches-parade/


Below is a photo from the building of the design company that ran the event. That huge silver slide in the lobby is for an alternative route downstairs: