The team that brought a nine-foot duck to One Spark last year set their latest sculpture afloat in Hemming Plaza on Wednesday; Colonel Crackers, the giant floating goldfish.Colonel Crackers, AKA Goldie, arrived on a trailer Wednesday morning shortly before 11 a.m. with Jacksonville "arts instigator" Wayne Wood.
The sculpture, created by University of North Florida sculpture students taught by professor Jenny Hager, was commissioned by Wood for this year's One Spark festival.
Last year, Wood commissioned the same class to create Sergeant Quackers, a giant floating duck sculpture, to float in the Hemming Plaza fountain during the inaugural festival.
Once on the ground near Hemming Plaza, Wood, Hager, UNF students, nearby One Spark participants, and an associate of Wood's named "Magic Ralph" began to move Colonel Quackers through the plaza to the fountain.
It took seven people to move the sculpture into place; Hager estimated that the colonel weighs more than 500 pounds.
Upon getting to the edge of the fountain, Wood and the rest of the moving crew were asked by a city employee to wait momentarily before placing the colonel in the water. The colonel was rested between the fountain's edge and a park table.
A second city employee arrived to give the go-ahead to drop the colonel in the water. At issue, he told Wood, was a pending chlorine test, to determine whether levels needed to be lowered in order to avoid discoloring the submerged section of the sculpture.
The entire deployment process took about 10 minutes.
Unlike her brother, Sgt. Quackers, Colonel Crackers is designed to be a floating fountain. According to the UNF Spinnaker, Sgt. Quackers will remain on campus during this year's One Spark festival.
You can follow Patrick Donges on Twitter @patrickhdonges.
