Winged Victories in Place!

At long last, the Winged Victories stand proud and protective above the windows of the Casino Star Theatre.  Early on April 30, Bill Garrick, Spencer Brown, and Brian Wallgren of 3D Art in Kearns, arrived in Gunnison with two statues strapped to their flatbed trailer, ready to begin the grueling twelve-hour job of mounting them above the windows.

Lynn Pickett, local excavator and tree-trimmer, joined them with his three-man basket lift to raise the men and their tools nearly three stories.   The first step was preparing the façade to support the weight of the statues.   Kendrick Thomas of Jones and DeMille Engineering in Richfield had worked with 3D Art to design a system of interior plates and braces to lock the sculpture in place without stressing the new stucco.

Preparation for the north Winged Victory took about 3 1/2 hours to complete, so the first installation came after lunch.  Sculptor Brad Taggart watched 3D strap the sculpture to the front of the basket with pride and a little uneasiness.  "Well," he said, "at least I know that if something happens, she can be replicated from the molds."   Ironically, after the mold is completed, he has no hesitation pulling chunks of clay from his original model to use again on his next project.

3D and Lynn Pickett completed the Victory above the south window an hour into showtime.  By then, the 250 lights on the façade illuminated the beautifully restored Casino Star—now with its Winged Victories (or Guardian Angels) watching over the night.