Gillie & Marc

 

   Gillie & Marc are a married couple who are known for the sculptures that they create together. Their work can be found on public streets all around the world. They are best known for their sculptures of Rabbitwoman and Dogman. They also have a strong focus on endangered animals. You can find out more about the artists and where their sculptures can be found at gillieandmarc.com. Below are some of the Gillie & Marc sculptures we have encountered in our travels. Many of their sculptures are on temporary exhibition before they move on to a new location.

Paparazzi Dogs

 

  These paparazzi dogmen were the first Gillie & Marc sculpture that we recall seeing. They were located on Powell Street in San Francisco. They were taking photos of people coming out of an H&M store inside the Elevated Shops building. The dogmen are a combination of Marc and his weimaraner dog named Indie.

Coffee Table Of Love

 

 In New York City at Park Ave and East 46th Street you will find Coffee Table Of Love. Dogman is joined by Rabbitwoman for a cup of coffee. There are two more stools at the table for passerbys to join the half animal, half human couple.

 

 

  Rabbitwoman in based on Gillie and an unknown rabbit. Rabbitwoman holds a coffee and looks across at Dogman.

 

   Dogman holds a coffee and looks across at Rabbitwoman.

Love Negotiation

  In Toronto, Canada there is another Rabbitwoman and Dogman sculpture on Scollard Street. This time they are sitting at a smaller coffee table with no room for anyone else to join them. 

 

 When we took these pictures there had been a recent snowfall so the sculptures had a layer of snow on them. These versions of Dogman and Rabbitwoman had some colour in them. Dogman was sporting a blue suit and Rabbitwoman wore a red dress. Neither of them was dressed for the weather.

 

He Was On A Wild Ride To A Safer Place With Rabbitwoman & Dogman

  At the time of posting this blog there was another Gillie & Marc sculpture in Toronto at David Pecaut Square. Dogman and Rabbitwoman are sharing a tandem bicylce with a rhinoceros. You can join them in the last seat. This sculpture is temporary and will leave Toronto in 2025. Who knows where it might end up. 

 

 

  The rhino is there to represent the campaign called Love The Last. This is meant to raise awareness of endangered animal species. We tried to see their sculpture called The Last Three in New York City, but it was gone when we got there. The sculpture represented the last three northern white rhinos on earth. Only two remain alive today.

 
The Travellers Have Arrived

  While other sculptures show Dogman and Rabbitwoman enjoying coffee or riding a bike, this sculpture in Las Vegas is quite different. The two half human, half animals are riding a donkey naked through the Cosmopolitan hotel. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!

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Map of Our World

Love Negotiation , He Was On A Wild Ride To A Safer Place With Rabbitwoman & Dogman , Paparazzi Dogs , Coffee Table Of Love , The Travellers Have Arrived

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Post # 336

World's Largest Nipper Statue

Location: Albany, New York, USA
Address:  991 Broadway
Date: June 2023
Website:  www.rca.com

  In 1898, Francis Barraud painted a picture of his dog Nipper curiously listening to a phonograph.  It has since become a famous logo for corporations such as RCA and HMV.  RCA stands for Radio Corporation of America and HMV stands for His Master's Voice.  His Master's Voice was the name of the painting.

  The front entrance of the HMV store on Oxford Street in London, England has Nipper pictured with a gramophone. When Barraud tried to sell his painting, the Gramophone Company was interested but only if the phonograph was changed to a gramophone.  Barraud painted another painting and this is the logo that you see today. HMV started using this logo in 1909.

      The world's largest Nipper has been sitting on top of a warehouse in Albany, New York since 1958.  He is made of fibreglass and steel and weighs about 4000 kg and stands almost 28 feet tall.  He has no gramophone, so he listens to the sounds of the city.

   Nipper sits alone in an industrial part of town so he would be happy for you to come and pay him a visit. He is an interesting part of history and an interesting logo. What is Nipper listening to we wonder?

    You may already have something with Nipper on it in your CD and record collection. We took a look around and quickly found the old electric RCA logo as well as Nipper on this CD from Pop Will Eat Itself that was released in 1990. Nipper may already be in your home too. If not a trip to Albany, New York will get you the most Nipper that can be found in one place.

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Map of Our World
World's Largest Nipper , His Master's Voice

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Post # 325

Lake George

 

Location: Lake George, New York, USA
Address:  2 Canada Street
Date:  September 2010
Website:  tikiresort.com

  Lake George is located in the northern part of New York state. It is located beside the Adirondack Mountains. The area is a popular tourist destination to enjoy the mountains and steamboat rides on the lake. After falling in love with Maui, Hawaii, we visited Lake George for the Polynesian dinner show. If you can't make it to Hawaii then you might want to head to Lake George in New York state and visit the Tiki Resort.

   We enjoyed a dinner, a few drinks and the show. It featured Hawaiian dancers and drummers all the way from Schenectady.  One of us even got to participate. A few lucky dancers were chosen to shake their stuff based on the fruit shouted out by the band. "Coconut" to the right, "Pineapple" to the left and "Papaya" to the rear. By the time we were done we had danced up a fruit salad.

     We were only in Lake George for one night to catch the Tiki show. The next morning we decided to see what else was going on in town before heading to New York City. As we approached the waterfront this duck quacked out to us.

 

 

  Across the water at the pier we could see the Mohican and Minnie Ha Ha steamboats getting ready to take tourists out for a relaxing trip around the lake. We hear that in the fall, the colours are lovely.

    As we headed out of Lake George, we were in for one last treat. We noticed a giant Uncle Sam in a parking lot. We pulled over and went to check him out. This Uncle Sam is 38 feet tall. He was designed for an Ohio restaurant called fittingly, Uncle Sam's. He then stood outside of the state fairgrounds in Danbury, Connecticut until coming to Lake George to stand in the parking lot of the Magic Forest amusement park.

  Behind Uncle Sam we noticed someone else very special. It was Santa Claus! What more could you ask for in a town? A Tiki Resort and Santa are two of our favourite things.

  Sadly, Uncle Sam has returned once again to Danbury and Santa has disappeared. The Tiki Resort is still doing shows so that is more than enough reason to spend a day in Lake George.  Coconut!!

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Map of Our World
Tiki Resort , Minnie Ha Ha

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Post # 323

Kelly & Ryan

Location: New York, New York, USA
Address:  77 W 66th St
Date: June 2017
Website:  kellyandryan.com

  LIVE with Kelly & Ryan is a morning talk show filmed at ABC studios in New York City.  The show has left the studio and travelled to Canada on three occassions.  Back in 1996 the show filmed from Niagara Falls, Ontario and the hosts were Regis Philbin and Kathy Lee Gifford.  In 2006, the show returned once more and this time Kelly Ripa joined Regis as a host. In 2017, the current hosts Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest filmed a pair of episodes and this time we were there.  Ryan Seacrest has announced that he will be leaving the show so we found ourselves looking back.

  We didn't actually have tickets to the show but we obtained ourselves a bird's eye view.  We had a room at the Sheraton Fallsview Hotel which overlooks the Oakes Garden Theatre where the taping of the show was to take place.

  The hotel also offers a great view to look across and admire the American and Horseshoe Falls.

     As we looked down from our balcony, we had a perfect view of the stage below.  The day before the taping we could watch the crews getting everything ready for the big day. The proximity to the Falls means that even if there is no rain in the forecast, you always have a chance of mist. The main desk on stage remained under a tarp for protection.

   Since we had arrived the day before, we were able to go down into the gardens and get a close up view of the stage. This is what it would be like to be one of the lucky audience members in attendance when the show went live.

  The audience members started to fill up the street at the bottom of Clifton Hill, waiting for their chance to enter the gardens.

  While the crowd squeezed into the gardens, we admired the beauty of Niagara Falls and were quite happy having our own private viewing area. It may have been way in the back, but we had an unobstructed view. 

 

   As show time approached we headed down to the hotel lobby.  Rumour had it that the stars themselves were in the hotel and getting ready to walk across to the Oakes Garden Theatre. Next thing we knew we had a front row seat as Kelly & Ryan were greeted to cheers from their fans.

  We headed back up to our private viewing suite.  We were just in time to catch the start of the show.

  Kelly & Ryan addressed the crowd of mostly Canadian fans.  It is only a short walk or drive across the Rainbow Bridge to get to New York state for any American fans in attendance.

  Kelly & Ryan sat at their big white desk. The desk was nice and dry after being protected under tarps waiting for the hosts to arrive. 

  To make the show even more Canadian, one of the guests was Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The highlight of his appearance seemed to be that he wore R2-D2 and C-3PO Star Wars socks.

  Since Kelly & Ryan had been nice enough to visit us in Canada, we decided to see more of them when we were in New York City. The show is filmed at ABC studios at West 67th Street and Columbus Ave. in Manhattan.

  If you follow West 67th Street into Central Park you will see a row of benches as you enter the park.  One of those is dedicated to Kelly Ripa.

      The bench congratulates Kelly Ripa for over 30 years with the Walt Disney Company which owns ABC. Kelly has been with LIVE for over 20 years and shows no signs of stopping. Her next co-host will be her husband Mark Consuelos.  If they choose to do another taping from Niagara Falls, we know where we will be watching from.

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Map of Our World
Kelly Ripa Bench , ABC Studios NYC
Oakes Garden Theatre

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Post # 321

Rise Of The Jack O'Lanterns

 

Location: Wheatley Heights, New York, USA
Address:  185 Colonial Springs Rd.
Date:  September 2022
Website:  jackolanterns.com

  As Halloween season approaches, all sorts of creatures prepare for October 31st to arrive.  Nothing represents Halloween quite like a carved pumpkin or Jack O'Lantern.  While we were in New York City we visited the Rise Of The Jack O'Lanterns.  The Rise Of The Jack O'Lanterns is a winding trail through the woods and is filled with hundreds of pumpkins.  There were pumpkins from all sorts of movies from animated Disney to Pulp Fiction.  This blog is going to focus on some of the spoookier carvings.  We followed the trail into the woods towards the glowing orange lights.

   The first pumpkins we encountered were based on famous works of art.  There was American Gothic, Mona Lisa and this more Halloween appropriate, The Scream.

     The next section featured all the Simpsons characters.  While not normally spooky, the animated show does a special Treehouse Of Horror episode at Halloween.  This year they will have made more than 32 of them.  Also Marge's hair reminds us of Bride of Frankenstein.

     There was no shortage of comic book heroes and villains.  We have pictured Venom above, as we find him to be the creepiest.

 

  While all the character carvings were made out of groups of pumpkins, there were still more traditional carvings scattered along the trail.

  The next group of carvings were from the creepy and kooky Addam's Family.  The Uncle Fester above appears to be from the movie version with Christopher Lloyd.  Further down the trail was also Christopher's most famous character of Doc Brown from Back to The Future.

    This skeleton biker reveals a bit of the secrets behind how these intricate carvings are made..

    A Pee-Wee Herman carving was the next we encountered.  Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was Tim Burton's first feature film.  Pee-Wee himself is not very scary. 

    But Large Marge is!

    Tim Burton's movies have always had a darker feel to them.  They have been associated with ghosts and strange creatures and Halloween.  He is responsible for Beetlejuice.

    Burton created the stop motion classic The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Jack Skellington has become both a symbol of Halloween and Christmas.

     There were also some carvings from the hilarious Mars Attacks!

 

    We headed further into the woods to see what else awaited us.

    There was a section for Peanuts characters.  Each Halloween, Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin to appear.  This year a great pumpkin carving of Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin.

    There was a section dedicated to artwork made up of flowers and skeletons.

   There were some classic horror film villains such as Freddy Krueger and the clown from It.

    In the Star Wars section there were lots of carvings.  Sorry Rebel forces but Halloween belongs to Darth Vader.

    There were so many more pumpkin creations along the Rise Of The Jack O'Lanterns trail.   We were impressed by the amount of work that went into the carvings.  If you need to get some costume ideas or enjoy a fall evening walk, these type of events can be found in many cities across North America.   Happy Halloween!

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Map of Our World
Rise Of The Jack O'Lanterns

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Post # 316