The origin of our Fisherman Standing in Boat Weathervane design has a lovely backstory. Our customer had purchased a fishing lodge built in 1937. While working on refurbishing the building the architect somehow came upon the original plans, which included a weather vane design that had never been a part of the establishment. Projects like restoring large, old buildings can take a lot of time and expense, and it was looking like once again the weather vane would not find a place in the budget. And then friends stepped up and brought the design to us. They had us enhance the simple flat design to create this beautiful, swell-bodied sculpture piece in extra large, keeping scale with the building. On the horizontal tube is inscribed ‘Gift of’ … and the date. There is more on this interesting backstory: https://bigforkinn.com/history

For this customer, the boat and fish are each brass, and the rest of the sculpture is copper. It is a mirror image piece, meaning it looks the same however the wind spins it. Optional gold leaf highlights were requested for the fisherman’s face and hands, and the speckles on the trout. The boat’s name is also in gold leaf. As the brass of the boat hull weathers and darkens this bright gold name will be a particular stand out: PERSEVERE.  A 1937 ‘Lucky Penny‘ caps the horizontal tube, giving a nod to the origins, and a 1924 ‘Lucky Penny’ is inside the fisherman to date the year of their new beginnings. The area can experience strong winds, so a security device was requested, to keep the sculpture piece from blowing off the spire. There are also two copper gussets where the vertical tube meets the horizontal giving added strength and connection.

We are delighted with this piece, and hope to be adding pictures of it mounted on the Bigfoot Inn in the not too distant future.