Lily in “Tickle Me”

My very favorite alligator “Lily”  is a pleasure to play with.  I introduced her into my work as  “The Waiter Gator” when I was the artist of the year for the Florida WineFest.

Her 3 dimensional debut came in 2012.  The alligator became a public art installation on Palm Avenue in the City of Sarasota.

Her suave figure has appeared in a number of illustrations….

 

Last month Lily was again cut from aluminum plate and finished as a four foot by eight foot sculpture named appropriately – “Tickle Me”.

Pass6_13

The Passengers

The sculpture was approved by the City of Sarasota’s Public Art Committee February 2012 and installed April 2012.

The sculpture is a site-specific piece commissioned for the parking structure located at the eastern most end of Sarasota, Florida’s Main Street.  It is a wall hung, multi-element sculpture fabricated from aluminum plate and powder-coated.  

Re-imagining the feeling of arrival, the expectation and anticipation of coming to Sarasota in the 1920’s,  The Passengers sculpture becomes a visual reminder of the former use of the site as the Atlantic Seaboard Railway Depot.  The elements of the piece create a larger than life vignette that draws on the new building’s distinctive architectural features adding dimension and reality to the sculpture.