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8 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, November 5, 1985 ol L « aa Hey up there! Bill Lishman looks down from a scary height of his half-finished tower. Bill gets acquained with a curvesome yet headless female figure, who when finished will be perched on a bicycle. Lishman enterprises gear up for Expo '86 Bill does it again! Bill Lishman has done it again. Only from the mind of Purple Hill's "'mad inventor" could come this latest adventure, an 85 feet tall sculpture that's part art, part junk and entirely unusual. It's called Transcending the Traffic and by Christmas (he hopes), it'll be standing in full glory on the grounds of Expo '86 as part of the Expo theme Transpor- tation and Communication. According to Bill, Expo will be divided into three main plazas, each one representing a different method of travel: water, air and land. Each plaza will feature a large vertical sculpture, of which Bill's creation (land) will be one. At the bottom of the sculpture will be what Bill calls an inter- national traffic jam with vehicles of all makes and origins lumped creatively together. About 30 vehicles catch on to the spiral which winds around the cone- shaped sculpture, made mostly of recycled auto scrap steel from A.G. Simpson. As the vehicles spiral forward, they become beasts of burdens, horses, camels and then bicycles, wheelchairs and finally human figures running, walking, climbing until the last figure, a woman Bill has nicknamed "Tina Turner," reaches delicately to the sky. "It's a sort of celebration of feet and legs. Our most important form of land transportation is musclepower," Bill says about the sculpture. 'The last lady dissolves into space, y'know, another dimension." Work began early in August with four to 10 people working on it at various times, an average of 50 hours a week. "And 1 worked week,' Bill says. Each part of the sculpture had to be made separately and will be shipped individually before being put together at Expo. Fifty-five human and animal figures, each made individually, circle their way around the huge painted steel cone, which opens up much like the CN Tower It looks like an incredibly dif- ficult piece of work but Bill claims 100 hours a Finished, the tower will stand 85 feet tall, surrounded by 55 human and animal figures. Above, Bill takes a look around from the top of the half-finished tower. the hardest part about the entire operation was nailing down the job in the first place. Sixteen different groups sent in entries, which Expo narrowed down to four. "And I wasn't even on that list of four!" Bill grins. "They dumped the last four and called me in at the last minute." He shakes his head. "The most difficult part of the whole job was 'getting the contract organized. The mer ",. . tl RL S x 59H Fa ON 4 Coins CLE paperwork stack stands as tall as this thing is." Unlike the enormous silvery salmon the Lishman workshop sent out east last summer, Bill's latest sculpture will not be at Expo permanently. By this time next year, he'll be looking for a new home for it. "I was thinking about downtown Port Perry," he muses, half- seriously. 'All I need is somebody to donate the land to put it on." School crossing? Two upside down figures take a walk in Bill Lishman's yard. 7 ) R AA a © ¢ Jee Ney ' Ho a #0 > pas 4. 5% ™ CARE NS ------------ ees A hard-working Bill Lishman employee sits back with a friend, unfortunately confined to a wheelchair since birth.