Megan and Murray McMillan

Alex Peacock and J.R. Uretsky

PA Gianna Stewart (who is actually a sculptor/painter hybrid–this job could not have had a better match).

Second Assistant Alex Peacock with MASS MoCA Fabricator/Art Ninja Derek Parker loading the finished tea house lock mechanism to take to North Adams. Derek ended up taking all the measurements off of this and rebuilding it so it could better fit into the tea house (which he built off of our SketchUp model). And look prettier. There are some really hideous connections in there. In my defense, there is a comic amount of screws in those terrible looking connections.

Alex Peacock with the completed tea house lock mechanism in position with the boulder.

The completed tea house lock mechanism with 4×4 lock inserted and locked.

J.R. Uretsky and Alex Peacock

Building the scaffolding to hold up the tea house lock mechanism (the part of the tea house that the boulder fits into).

J.R. Uretsky

J.R. Uretsky

Greg Lookerse, Christian Meade and J.R. Uretsky

Boulder-riding performer Dorothea Ulrich testing the final foot mount.

PA Greg Lookerse and PA Christian Meade installing the performer foot mount as J.R. Uretsky checks the numbers.

Performer foot mount in position. The 2×4 system protruding forwards is the skeleton of the mechanism that locks the boulder into the floating tea house.

PA Greg Lookerse and PA Christian Meade designed and fabricated 7 versions of the foot  mount, each version slightly better than the previous generation. This is version 4, which featured the better angle. Great work guys.

Second Assistant Alex Peacock

(Left to right) PA Greg Lookerse, PA Christian Meade and Second Assistant Alex Peacock

Performer Boulder Base, ready to be suspended.

Placing a performer, Rhode Island artist and aerialist Thea Ulrich, on a boulder 25′ in the air in an industrial coal bin is something to get right. This single boulder took us as long to make as the other 8 combined. Each component of the internal structure is comically overbuilt. My rule of thumb as a designer without an engineering degree is make it twice as strong as I think it should be. We have never had a performer get hurt and spend a lot of time and energy working to prevent it.

Actually, we’ve never had a crew member get hurt either (at least nothing a bandaid couldn’t fix). We start each fabrication day with the same question to everyone on our crew: how are you going to get hurt today? Although this gets crazy repetitive–it reminds each of us (and Megan and I who also answer the question daily too)–that the more relaxed we get with the tools we use everyday, the closer to forgetting that they can hurt us we get. I must not loose my fear of these tools.

This is the I-beam we made and placed to hold one of the lines for the performer boulder. 2×6 top and bottom with a 2×10 middle: oh my heavy. Installed on the hottest day of summer during a heat storm. Thank you Alex Peacock.

J.R. Uretsky can lay down triangles like nobodies business. Somewhere towards the middle of this I was dreading doing another triangle and then a peaceful bliss came over me and I have ended up really liking the process and welcome triangles in the future. They are so fabulously to-the-point: 3 measurements do not lie–a specific triangle has to be that specific triangle. There is peace in that.

J.R. Uretsky and Megan

Assistant J.R. Uretsky and second assistant Alex Peacock. There is a lot of both of these people in these boulders.

J.R. Uretsky

Alright, this is a little boulder that didn’t make it into the final film shoot. It has a basin for our performer  to wash her hands, following traditional Japanese etiquette before entering a tea house. I still like the idea, but there wasn’t enough space for it once we got all the boulders in the final film location.

Our Assistant J.R. Uretsky with PA Christian Meade securing a triangle.

The Triangle factory: (left to right) PA Ryan Hawk, Assistant J.R. Uretsky, PA Christian Meade and PA Greg Lookerse

Each triangle take a team of three people about 20-30 minutes. A team of five people can do a triangle in 15 minutes.