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Local artist takes on a beast of a project
Helps bring a life-sized bronze dinosaur to a museum on the campus of Yale University
By Carla Di Fonzo, Intelligencer Journal Staff
Intelligencer Journal
Published: Aug 25, 2005 9:21 AM EST
LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Dinosaurs no longer roam the earth, but George Mummert can deliver the next-best thing.
The local sculptor and a team of artists and volunteers completed the construction of a 21-foot bronze torosaurus four months ago, a life-sized monument that weighs more than 7,000 pounds.
Now Mummert is awaiting the dinosaur's dedication ceremony on Oct. 22 at
the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, which will be
its permanent home.
"We've been working on the dinosaur since
December, so we're all excited to see the monument finally unveiled,"
Mummert said. "It was just an honor to be a part of one of the biggest
projects the museum has overseen in years."
The 35-year-old artist,
a 1996 graduate of Millersville University, said the Torosaurus was
designed by Peabody Museum sculptor Michael Anderson. Mummert said putting
the dinosaur together meant assembling a team that included his associate,
local artist Sean Bradley, and a handful of volunteers from both the
Millersville area and Connecticut.
This isn't the first time
Mummert and Bradley have tackled a prehistoric-based project of such large
scale.
Three years ago, the artists were called upon to create a
2,000-pound bronze Triceratops skull now on display at the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, D.C.
They also completed a series of
skulls depicting the history of human evolution for the Peabody Museum,
where they met world-famous paleoanthropologist Maeve
Leakey.
Mummert said the torosaurus project presented its own
series of unique challenges that had to be met head-on.
"In the
beginning, it was interesting because everything seemed easier to manage
on paper," he said. "And we didn't consider all the challenges section by
section when it came time to build; it was all at once. Safety was a big
issue."
Before the team worked on the bronze exterior, they had to
build an internal frame, or armature.
"It had to be extremely
stable," Mummert said. "And there couldn't be any metal protruding
anywhere. The steel skeleton was also a big undertaking."
The
torosaurus will stand on a stone foundation that weighs 175,000 pounds.
Mummert said the rock comes from Stony Creek Granite Quarry in Branford,
Conn., where builders obtained the base for the Statue of
Liberty.
"The torosaurus is also kind of a special dinosaur. Their
skulls are somewhat rare, but the Peabody has two on display," Mummert
said.
The Torosaurus had one of the biggest heads (8½ feet in
length) of any land animal known to have walked the Earth.
But the
whopping size of the dinosaur's head didn't intimidate the artist as much
as last-minute design changes.
"Basically, they changed the
orientation of the foot," Mummert said. "So, the dinosaur is standing on
three points, with the fourth foot extended over the granite
base."
And since the artists were working with steel and not on
paper, changes could not simply be redrawn.
"When we changed the
foot we had to weld steel in different places," Mummert said. "Any change
was significant since you can't just erase something."
The artist
said the dinosaur will be installed Sept. 23, but that the Oct. 22
ceremony will be open to the public and give people a chance to take part
in special activities from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
To find out more about
the torosaurus project, go to artfoundlancaster.org or georgemummert.com.
"It was just an honor to be
a part of one of the biggest projects the museum has overseen in years."
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