The design idea for the Monkeys and the entire exhibit, Metal Monkey Mania, was born in the Fall of 2010. I was in Grand Rapids Michigan where the Big Dog Show was exhibiting in Art Prize. As my team and I walked around the city viewing all the amazing art and exhibits, we crossed over a blue pedestrian bridge several times. I loved the beams and girders visible on the bridge and was instantly intrigued with figuring out what type of sculpture I could hang from them.

Since the majority of my sculptures are quite large and need to be secured to the ground, creating a piece that was meant to hang was entirely new to me. As I was pondering the idea of how to secure a sculpture safely to the bridge, monkeys popped into my head and they seemed to be the perfect design choice.

I knew that I could use the hands to hook over the beams and then use the tails to hang additional monkeys. The idea felt natural, obvious, and inviting.

Before leaving to return to Massachusetts, we took measurements of the bridge, made notes on the structure, and took lots of pictures to begin the design plan for Metal Monkey Mania, which I could now see clear as day in my head.

The art design for the monkey was completed in the early fall and we built the first prototype in December 2010. We tweaked the design a little bit by narrowing the tail and refining some details, and then built 100 of them to be a part of Art Prize 2011.