Love, At First Sight, returns to Cloudstone

by Burt Beusch

Returning ‘Love At First Sight’ to Cloudstone has been no small task.

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Many thanks to Moe, Mark and Stephan for making the drizzly trip to the Everett Arboretum back on June 11. We worked with the awesome City of Everett guys – and their incredible mini backhoe - to load it into Hank’s GMC and bring it home.

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Stephan decided to place LAFS on a new mound he created near the picnic table and across the lane from Passages. Single handedly – with the use of the machines and straps – he put it in place. A few days later I went to help him replace the pin and we discovered the base was placed backwards so he rigged up some straps, lifted LAFS and the base simultaneously then I spun it 180 degrees for its final placement. As we chatted afterwards, we started to admire the holly tree sitting next to the sculpture and realized it was engulfed with blackberry vines that extended 25’ up into the holly and the tree next to it.

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After two tugs of blackberries were pulled away we still filled the front bucket of the backhoe with four loads of debris before we finished. The end result is a beautiful holly and some amazing new sight lines all around Love At First Sight.

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Check out the attached photos to see our final work. Notice how the holly is opened up and the base has been cleared away. Make sure you check it out the next time you’re at Cloudstone.

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I want to thank Cindy for her mad pruning skills and enthusiasm for projects like this. She just dives into any task at hand and has fun in the process. As always, it was a pleasure to work with Stephan to watch him masterfully operate the equipment and solve problems as they come up. Lots of work and plenty of flesh wounds but a very rewarding task…and a very important ‘new’ piece for Cloudstone Sculpture.