With the polar vortex fast approaching, time for something heartwarming!  There is something new in Bookscape to look for when you next visit.

Here’s the story.   There was a small disaster shortly after we moved back into Cotsen this April.  Without any warning, the mast and sails of the pirate ship sailing across the Kite Wall collapsed and fell to the floor.  No one was hurt, thank heavens… The bad news was that our Jolly Roger was past repair.  The good news was that we would have to work with our good friends at Straight Line Designs in Vancouver, Washington to create a new figure.

It would be a monkey flying on a magic book.   We talked and Judson sketched. The wind-blown hair was Minjie’s inspired idea.  Dana’s suggestion that the monkey would  ride cross-legged so he wouldn’t fall off taking sharp turns in mid-air was adopted as work progressed.

Pattern pieces for all the parts…

Danielle hard at work carving the monkey out of a special kind of Styrofoam that is light but strong and can be painted.Several color schemes for us to consider, none of which seemed quite right.

 Danielle convinced us that the monkey really wanted to be purple.  Andrea talked her into a rosy pink for the fly book’s boards.

A special crate was built to ship the monkey to Princeton and he arrived safe and sound exactly twenty-four hours behind schedule.  But It takes more than that to stop Judson and Danielle from installing a purple monkey on time.  Danielle got on her hands and knees to make a tracing so that monkey would be placed perfectly on the wall, right where the pirate ship had been.

Attaching him to the wall wasn’t as easy as Danielle is making it look here. This was taken before she discovered that it was going to be necessary to drill through metal to secure the figure so it wouldn’t fall down. 

Here he is, floating between the dragon and the fox.