Unveiling of the Japanese Maple Tree at Garden Spot Village

Garden Spot Village, a retirement community in New Holland, PA completely renovated their atrium. For the longest time, the main centerpiece of the atrium was up in the air. A year ago, they saw the tree that was created for the Clinic for Special Children and become really excited about the possibility of having a hand-forged Japanese Maple Tree for their atrium. Warfel Construction, the contractor that renovated the atrium, donated money towards the acquisition of the sculpture.

We started the project in March, completed it in August, but for months, I had been trying to come up with a special gift, as my personal way of saying thank-you for this special project. I had been thinking of what I can do, a bird, a rose, knowing that the Garden Spot logo is a rose. In the Ironworks industry, dragons are very popular to forge, but what would a dragon be doing in a tree in Garden Spot? I wanted to create squirrels, but how do we forge squirrels? I combed through forging books and literature to see if I could get any guidance. The closest thing we found was a mouse. So we started forging, just trial and error and we created 2 squirrels. It was a team effort, Benjamin and Aaron forged their tails, and here they are. We have a male named Sparky, and the female named Patina. There are about 3 days of forging and labor into the creation of these 2 squirrels. We became a little innovative and put a magnetic base on each of these squirrels so that they can be moved around and every week you can have the pleasure of seeing where the squirrels have moved to. So the staff at Garden Spot now has 2 more squirrels to take care off!

We currently have 2 more sculptures under way, 2 totally different concepts, none of which are close to a Japanese Maple Tree.