Artist Spotlight: Kimmerjae Macarus, Sculptor of Shey the Lion

Shey is a years-long labor of love.She’s a 4-3/4 ton lion sculpture crafted by hand from Lyons Pink sandstone. What better place for her to settle than Bohn Park in Lyons?Sculptor Kimmerjae Macarus found the original 8-ton sandstone block in a stoneyard where she worked during her time in landscape design. The block has been in her life for over a decade, ever since she discovered it before the 2013 Front Range floods.She fell in love with the rock, looking at it and climbing it for years. The block had many significant vertical fissures, or “dry cracks,” and, combined with the enormous cost of purchasing the block, she felt it would be insane to try to bring the stone to her studio in Lafayette to carve it.Her connection to the stone did not break, though. The Front Range floods moved many of the pieces in the stoneyard, and when she initially struggled to find this stone, she panicked and grieved for it.When she finally found the stone again, she knew she had to try to carve something from it, even if the result wasn’t successful.Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record Better off Dead here. Support the showThank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages are linked below.If you want to be involved in the podcast or paper, contact:Barbara Hardt, our editor-in-chief, at [email protected] Hickman, multimedia producer, at [email protected] Lammers, podcast host, at [email protected] inquiries: [email protected] to our website for all of the latest news. Subscribe to The Mountain-Ear in print and online.Submit local events to promote them in the paper and on our website.Find us on Facebook @mtnear and Instagram @mtn.earListen and watch on YouTube today.Share this podcast by scrolling to the bottom of our website home page or by heading to our main hub on Buzzsprout.Thank you for listening!