Sculptor Keith Gibson built T-Rex 20 years ago from found materials: glass bottles, plastic bags, and packing peanuts. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)
Bookzilla is back.
Crews this week completed the re-installation of a full-scale tyrannosaurus rex head in Sitka’s newly-remodeled public library.
The life-size T-Rex — affectionately known as Bookzilla — has been terrifying children in Sitka for twenty years.
KCAW’s Robert Woolsey stopped by to check on the progress of the work, and to hear the story of how a huge, menacing dinosaur became a fixture of Sitka’s library.
electric knife
Sculptor Keith Gibson is a master of the found object. The best way to cut styrofoam, he’s found, is with an electric carving knife he picked up at a local thrift store.
I like the way this kind of sticks out a little bit. That’s kind of a cool, God-thing accident that I never planned for.
Most all the materials Gibson used in Bookzilla were found — including the carving knife! (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)
This styrofoam will be painted to match the beams in the ceiling of the children’s room of Sitka’s Public Library. Through a combination of grants, private donations, and some city funds, Sitkans just added 60-percent more space to their library — only to have this life-sized T-Rex come crashing through the roof — again.
Gibson originally built the T-Rex as a gift for a colleague at Mt. Aviation named Florian Sever. Sever knew a lot of Sitkans who had animal mounts on their walls. He wanted a T-Rex mount.
Gibson agreed and… well, Gibson is something of literalist.
He worked on the model for months, and then gave Sever a call.
“Bring your truck. Your T-Rex is ready. He comes over and he goes, Oh my god! I didn’t think you’d build it full-scale. And I said, That’s what you see when you see a T-Rex!”
10-year old Nathan Christner is devoured by Bookzilla. His dad, Matt, was project manager for the library remodel. And unless you’re helping the artist, climbing on the shelves and into Bookzilla’s mouth is NOT ALLOWED!! (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)
T-Rex’s skull is around five feet long and about four feet wide. Its frame is wire coat hangers, plexiglass, and lexan, covered in silicone. T-Rex’s skin is made from thousands of pieces of glass beer bottles. His jaws are agape with massive rows of teeth, and foaming silicone saliva.
The installation shows Bookzilla in action, crashing through the roof, with cracked timbers and pieces of insulation and tar paper flying everywhere.
This is the third time that Gibson has installed the piece. He estimates that it weighs several hundred pounds. The first time, though, T-Rex really did bring down the roof.
“The teeth were done, and everything was pretty much done, and I had it up in the ceiling and I had a come-along on it. And I wasn’t watching the other side — this is why I have lots of help moving it — and it ripped a bolt out of the ceiling. And it fell six or so feet. Luckily, there was a milk crate on the concrete floor, and it squashed the milk crate, and then fell over on its side. But because I used coat hangers, and the lexan, and the plexiglass, when it hit it just kind of moved and morphed — because those coat hangers gave it flexibility, as well as the skin, which is silicone, and flexible like rubber, right? So when I went inside his head with a flashlight and looked around, there wasn’t any damage at all.”
Since that early disaster, Gibson says he has always used redundant systems to install T-Rex, to ensure the safety of any milk crates that might be underneath it — even during earthquakes.
Gibson has moved T-Rex three previous times, as Sitka’s library relocated to temporary quarters during renovations. This should be the final installation, allowing Gibson, who is also a night nurse at the Sitka Pioneer Home, to move on to other projects.
His next idea?
“A giant diamond that you get inside of and walk on the water.”
Or, in other words, an art project to terrify adults.
