If you’ve taken a flight out of Calgary, especially with kids, you’ve likely seen the giant toy airplanes spinning around in the domestic terminal.
The sculptures have been on display in that spot for more than 20 years, but the planes will soon be taking their final flight.
The airport is decommissioning the artwork as part of plans to revamp the space. It’s bittersweet news for Calgary metal artist Jeff de Boer, who is the creator behind the piece.
“I think they were an icon at the airport and something that people could recognize.”
The two sculptures, dubbed When Aviation Was Young, look like tall, colourful carousels, each with three airplanes dangling from the top. The planes rotate in a circle and their propellers spin.
Each piece is six-metres tall, and the airplanes are each 1.5 metres across.
Jeff de Boer creating the airplanes. Each of the six sculptures is five-feet long. (Submitted by Jeff de Boer)
The display is being removed to make way for “guest experience” updates in the domestic terminal, according to a statement from the Calgary Airport Authority.
“Replacement of carpet and tile, improved lighting and creating smoother passenger flows are part of the updates,” the statement said.
The sculptures will come down by mid-June.
Calgary Eyeopener8:25When Aviation Was Young
Why two giant wind-up toys in the Calgary International Airport are being decommissioned.
When he started the plane project two decades ago, de Boer said he wanted to create something both children and adults would enjoy.
He also wanted to tie in the history of aviation, with each of the six airplanes telling their own story.
“There’s the first airplane to ever fly in Calgary, the West Wind. There is the Fokker Super Universal, which is one of the great bush planes. And then there’s Fred McCall’s Curtiss Jenny, which he famously crash-landed on top of a merry-go-round at the Stampede grounds in 1919,” he said.
“On the other side, there’s the twin-engine planes. We have a DC-3, and then we have the famous Kenn Borek Air Twin Otter. And then there’s the very rare Barkley-Grow, which was a bush plane that was servicing the Yukon and Alberta back in the ’20s.”
Fred McCall crash-landed his Curtiss Jenny on top of a rotating merry-go-round at the Calgary Exhibition in 1919, after his engine stalled shortly after takeoff. (Courtesy of Glenbow Library and Archives, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary)
Besides the historical aspect, de Boer said he wanted the planes to bring fun, joy and relaxation to passengers.
It was something he felt was particularly important, especially because the piece was unveiled shortly after 9/11.
“Aviation was a terrifying thing to people. So this idea [was to bring] joy again back to something that people had enjoyed so much before,” he said.
The airport plans to return the sculptures to de Boer after they’re removed.
It’s still in great shape, he said. One of the planes isn’t working at the moment, but the artwork is built to last.
“Certainly I want to find a home for them. I’d hate to see them go to the scrapyard,” he said.
“I would love to have them in a public place … so anybody in Calgary hopefully can see them one day without having to be flying.”
Jeff de Boer has created other pieces of art for the airport, including this sculpture called Nature’s Playground. (Jeff de Boer/Facebook)
Worst case, de Boer said, he’s had inquiries from collectors about getting individual planes.
Although he’s disappointed to see the display removed, de Boer said he’s proud to have created something that resonated with people.
“There was a whole culture around the sculptures that every artist would hope for with their work.”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
