Giraffe Sculpture

Sculpture title:
”I Could Not Outrun The Giraffe”

Durability
It is stainless steel. No maintenance is required.

Shot in fog to show it in the most
color-muting lights

Development
“I Could Not Outrun The Giraffe” was developed more than 20 years ago when I spent 9 months working full time to produce the prototypes that led to it. When the final prototype was done, I gave it to a relative so I could watch it for a few years to see how it held up in the weather. I hadn’t planned to watch it for 20 years, but I had moved on to making the other sculptures that I have been selling ever since. That final prototype now is near Washington D.C. where they tell me that everyone who comes to their house stops to talk about it. It has held up fine over the years.

Isn’t it about time I made one for sale?

I finally did. All the photos on this page are of it. The photo of it below was shot in blinding sunlight. The rule of thumb for capturing the accurate colors of artwork is to shoot under an overcast sky, but for work that might be placed outdoors it also should be seen in the brightest sunlight, which can be another color-muting light.

Price
It is listed at Saatchi.com for $9,500 USDSpecs

Stainless steel, 10 ft tall (3 m), width varies between 10″ – 12″ (25 – 30 cm).

Click here for a High Resolution Image.

Installation
If it is to be installed indoors, how to do it depends on what it will be near. In the lobby in front of my studio it is next to a wall. So I added a hook inside the top and tied a safety line to that and tied that to the wall. The pole is stable enough to need no more than that.If it is to be installed indoors away from anything else, and the ceiling is too high to run a safety line to that, I will add a base to the piece that will make it a more secure free-standing piece.

If it is to be installed outdoors I add thirty inches to it that go underground. No cement is needed with that much in the ground – only a post hole to slide it into. The earth that came out of the hole is all that needs to be tamped in around it to support it. Sculptures of mine have been installed that way all over the USA (and some foreign countries) for more than 20 years, mostly in parks, on campuses and in church yards. They have withstood sustained gale-force winds that blew down trees around them. In the long-term it is better off without cement anchoring it.

There are 40-foot-tall streetlights over freeways installed in the same way. The engineering formula for the amount of depth to bury in order to anchor the amount of height above ground is more reliable

than nature’s formula for blowing trees down.

Click here for an extreme close-up.

BTW, I strength-tested the prototype by pounding on it with a wooden 2 by 4. I pounded until the 2 inch by 4 inch 8 foot long lumber broke. No visible mark was left on the sculpture.