An artist whose work was recently damaged is dismayed but determined to repair it in time for a festival in Okotoks.
Rambling Recyclers is an automata art installation created by Jenny Dale Stables, the artist behind Jenny Dale Designs, for the Nooks & Crannies Festival which runs from July 20 to Aug. 24 in downtown Okotoks.
The art consists of a four-piece band of different animals – Tommy Trash, Michael Junkson, Lisa Leftover and a banjo-strumming raccoon named Ricky Rubbish – that all move when a crank is turned, but the raccoon was recently stolen from the display in Stockton Garden on McRae Street.
Stables said the character was built into a table and secured with brackets.
“There’s no way this could have been an accident,” she said.
Building the piece was no easy task and Stables is facing a time crunch to replace the character in time for the festival.
“It took months of planning, months of trial and error, and now, before the festival even begins, somebody thought it was really cool to just yank that character off and steal it,” she said.
She estimates it will take 16 to 20 hours, or more, to rebuild the missing raccoon.
“Two days in my garage to replace something that I really shouldn't have to,” she said. “It’s really, really upsetting.”
She already spent 150 hours on the project, triple what she usually spends on projects for the festival.
“There's so much that goes into making a piece actually move,” she said. “I think (the theft) is a symptom of individuals that do not see the value of the artwork that’s out there and do not see the value of the artist’s time that goes into this.”
Nooks & Crannies is about engaging people, utilizing empty spaces and creating an opportunity for shared experience, and professional artists are paid $300 to make something for the festival out of recycled, reused or salvaged material, she said.
“It's the idea of using these things, these materials that are overlooked, that we might see as worthless and actually creating art out of them,” she said."We do it because we want to create something special that the community can engage in.”
Even if it means losing time that she could spend with her family or on other projects, her heart is set on repairing the artwork, she said.
“I want to see the smile on the kids' faces when they come and they see that sculpture and they're able to play with it,” she said.
One positive to come out of the situation is the community support she’s received, with many people keeping an eye out for the raccoon or sharing news of the theft on social media.
“It really does show that there is a community here that cares,” she said.
