Richmond Hill artist sculpts ‘intriguing concept’ to raise awareness about at-risk animals

Cindy Scaife was selected as 'Artist in Residence' this year

Yorkregion.com
Sept. 5, 2019
Sheila Wang

You may expect some wildlife encounters at Lake Wilcox Park, but how about a snapping turtle, a Jefferson Salamander, and a woodpecker all in the same spot?

Don’t worry. They are all wood sculptures.

Richmond Hill artist Cindy Scaife brought her latest work “a Puzzling Habitat” to a free family workshop on Aug. 29 to Lake Wilcox Park featuring the native animals that are at risk in York Region.

“They are not endangered yet but they’re being impacted by our encroachment on their environment,” said Scaife who designed the sculptures with a system of interlocking wooden pieces.

The local mural artist and arts educator was selected as Richmond Hill’s “Artist in Residence” this year for her unique sculpture series.

Scaife’s artwork stood out from all 14 applicants for its “intriguing concept” that uses the power of art to raise awareness of threatened species, said Stephanie Graham, Richmond Hill’s cultural services co-ordinator.

The artist in residence program is set to provide artists with opportunity to create new work for the purpose of improving outdoor public spaces and engage the community.

"I’m very inspired by vintage items and also I like toys a lot. So I wanted to make the component so that the community can reproduce the sculptures,” Scaife said.

As a mural artist for more than 30 years, Scaife said this was the first time she tried her hand at the three-dimensional art design and fell immediately in love with the new way of art creation.

But it wasn’t easy.

Scaife had to learn the new technique from scratch and used a queen bed-sized CNC router -- a computer-controlled cutting machine -- to produce the wooden pieces before assembling them together.

It took Scaife about three weeks to finally bring these sculptures to life, she added.

And now, the artist is providing an opportunity for kids to create their very own animal puzzles in an easier and fun way at the family workshop.

“This has been really fun because you didn’t really know how the public was gonna respond to it but so far the kids are really taking their time to colour them and enjoy putting them together,” said Scaife who was surrounded with curious kids who were busy working on the pre-made cardboards.

Scaife said she designed the patterns with Adobe Illustrator and prepared the cardboards with a laser-cutter in a maker space in Newmarket.

In this way, kids can easily replicate her sculptures in miniature versions and colour them in any way they like.

This was Scaife’s second family workshop for her sculpture series in the community. Her sculptures are also on display Oak Ridges Community Centre until Sept. 28.

Free family workshops are also scheduled for Sept. 5 from 5 to 8 p.m. at Lake Wilcox Park; Sept. 22 from 1 to 4 p.m. at Lake Wilcox Park; Sept. 28 from 1 to 4 p.m. at Central Library.

Visit www.cindyscaife.com for more of Scaife’s work.

Visit richmondhill.ca for more information about the artist in residence program.