When Sacramento's Downtown Plaza underwent a radical facelift in 1995, all of Sacramento watched. K street had stagnated...again, but a two-story outdoor mall with over 100 retail outlets was waiting to revitalize the look and feel of downtown. It did. One new display was a "Terrace Café" sign on the 2nd floor welcoming hungry mall-goers to such mall staples as Sbarro, Jasper's Giant hamburgers and Hot Dog on a Stick. The terrace café sign had wrought iron lettering and three icons at the bottom: a strawberry, a croissant and a coffee cup. Within 6 months, the gold strawberry was gone. I suspect that some drunk from the mall super-tavern America Live stole it late one night.
The missing icon went unrepaired for months. Three bolts stuck two inches out of the wall, ready to hold a new gold sculpture...a great gold sculpture. Over the summer I had learned how to carve blue Styrofoam, a tiny-celled cousin of white Styrofoam, great for sculptures and display. I had been working on County displays for the California State Fair with Richard Bay, a Professor at CSU Sacramento. I decided to replace the strawberry...with a golden turkey!
I quickly carved a new icon at home, primed and painted it gold. The next day after work, I folded a piece of cardboard in half and covered the turkey for its trip to the mall! In broad daylight I squished the foam bird onto the awaiting bolts. There were a few people in the mall, but they were ignoring me. I backed off 30 feet or so and took a picture.
I knew that no one was in charge of upkeep on this sign, or they would have fixed it months ago...if my turkey could last two days, it would stay forever. I left for a week to New York City.
It stayed.
I returned triumphantly. I told everyone I knew about it. I would get status reports at the café I worked at on a daily basis.
"Hey Rob! Your turkey is still up!" Kara would say. I would just nod knowingly.
It stayed up for eight months, but eventually it disappeared. I doubt mall management had anything to do with it but perhaps word got back to them that they a joke had been played on them. When I learned it was gone, I knew I had to replace it, but I didn't have access to any more blue Styrofoam.
Eventually I got my hands on a good-sized slab, through Richard Bay, and carved out a new icon.
The golden banana went up September 22nd, 1997 and it is still there. Once again I struck in broad daylight. As you can see, my carving abilities improved, but the color match is not any closer. I actually used the same can of bronze spray paint for both the turkey and the banana.
My original plan was to make the banana unmistakably phallic, but I chickened out in the planning stages. Working for hours on a sculpture that was taken down immediately would have been very disappointing, and I didn't want to risk it. In retrospect it is not nearly as nonsensical as the turkey. Perhaps I will replace it someday.
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