Moving Joe... Again

A pattern has been emerging at Hempel Studios: moving stuff. I have numerous blog posts about moving Joe, especially the momentous day we installed St. Joseph at Our Lady of Mercy in May, 2007.

St. Joseph's carver's model has been on quite an adventure around the world. On a crisp day in February, 2005, Erik and I crated up St. Joseph, put him in the back of a truck and sent him off to Italy. It was the same day that I closed the studio on Fifth Street.

He traveled to Pietrasanta where Studio Antognazzi copied the sculpture in marble. When the plaster came back to the US, the big question on every one's mind was "where do you put a giant sculpture of St. Joseph?" He went into storage at Canal Street Studios in Buck's County, PA. Andrew Logan, proprietor at CSS, runs a sculpture installation operation, as well as a bronze foundry and a sculpture studio where he creates his own work.

Finally, this weekend, he came home. The first challenge what to load him up.



Then we drove the six or so hours back across the great state of Pennsylvania and had to back the truck down the long, narrow driveway. In the crate, St. Joseph was too heavy to move, so we had to get him out.

We ended up sawing him out.

He is light enough that we were able to scoot him onto a dolly.

And push him to the hydraulic lift, which not-terribly-gently lowered him to the ground.

Once he was on the ground, we wheeled him into the garage. The next challenge was to get the crate out. We weren't as careful not to drop the crate and we did, in fact, drop it. We're going to turn the crate into a fun tool shed or a playhouse!