Of giant lobsters and drunken lampposts East Coast public art amuses and delights STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY DARCY RHYNO
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’m on my back, clenched in the crusher claw of a lobster the size of a small airplane. I’m not the first to fall victim to the behemoth and I won’t be the last. In fact, several people are waiting for me to tumble out so they can take my place. I could be playing Victim One in a 1950s B-movie, but this is no film set. It’s the giant lobster sculpture that welcomes visitors to Shediac, New Brunswick. The 90-ton beast stands with Sudbury’s supersized nickel, Alberta’s giant beaver and Moose Jaw’s massive moose as one of the most recognizable works of public art in Canada, all of them much larger than life. A community’s sense of humour is on full display at these mammoth monuments, but there’s much more to public art than a few laughs. Communities all over the East Coast are enriching street life, animating buildings, and adding interest to parks with imaginative art that links people to natural and human history. As with the Shediac lobster, many pieces honour a local iconic animal. In Barrington, Nova Scotia, it’s also the lobster that the community has chosen to celebrate. A dozen human-scale crustaceans painted by local artists stand on their tails here and there in a community where the lobster fishery is king. About two hours drive north along the coast in Lunenburg, metal fish hang from posts all over town. Sculptures of Newfoundland dogs and Labrador retrievers in St. John’s bring provincial geography to life. One pair gazes across the harbour to Signal Hill. A second pair looks back from the hill to the first. In Montague, PEI, a trio of larger-than-life cormorants called “Friends of a Feather”
Murals, giant lobsters and other public art adorns communities around the region. ATLANTIC PROVINCES
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