Middle-row Jumper - BILLIE JEAN
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Carvers: Art Denson & Dave Eastham
Painters: Marney Allen & Maxine MacKay
Size: 42" chest to rump
Status: finished
Sponsor: Glover/Korby Family
From the beginning, Lauren Baker envisioned a cowboy horse on the Fort Edmonton Park Carousel. Although nobody today has any knowledge of the whereabouts of PTC #40 (it was reportedly scrapped or broken up and its various parts sold at auction), we feel confident that Johnny Jones would have seen to it that there was one on the carousel that he so frequently brought to Calgary and Edmonton during the Twenties. Accordingly, Lauren has drawn a typical sorrel cowboy horse of the time for the middle row of our carousel.
The ornateness of Billie Jean makes him quite complex, thus providing a challenge for the person blocking-up the horse. As a result, Bert Wassing, a woodworking instructor at NAIT, was called upon to block-up Billie Jean's body.
Every detail of the horse is being brought to life by the carving team of Art Denson and Dave Eastham. Carving in tandem presents its own special challenges, and in the case of Billie Jean the challenge was even greater by the fact that both Art, a physician, and Dave, an engineer, lived outside of Edmonton. Nevertheless, the two have worked out a system that has resulted in a seamless carving style. Not even an expert can tell which part of the horse was carved by which person.