Lion’s Head


Artists: Rolando Diaz, Pascale Pryor, Byron Zarrabi, James Bauer

There is a giant swing at SPARK! that resembles a lion head-shaped door knocker.  On his travels through Europe, artist Rolando Diaz was inspired by the very large lion head door knockers he saw on castles throughout the country. SPARK! then approached Pascale Pryor, an artist who works in 3D sculptures, and asked her to translate the concept into a 3D piece.  Pascale provided a paper mache prototype that brought some of the lion’s facial features into focus. The prototype was approved and sent with the drawing to the welding team of Byron Zarabbi and James Bauer. Byron and James created a scale mock-up that really started to capture Ro’s vision.  The work was approved and the team installed the beautiful, full-size lion head. Another scale mock-up was created in which gold and copper curls were added. This began a circular process of Collaboration and Iteration as Pascale, Byron and James set about adding hair, painting eyes, sharpening fangs, adding whiskers and even modifying the design of the swing. After a few weeks, everyone stood back and admired the swing as it exists today – a gorgeous work of art resulting from the efforts of a creative team.