EAST MACHIAS, Maine — Washington Academy juniors Justin Villone and Kade Feeney spent a class period Friday working to bring a 6-foot lobster to life.
Villone fixed a crack near the tail — the unfortunate result of a recent fall — and Feeney applied fiberglass to the already plastered body and added a coat of resin.
“I got pretty good at fiberglassing,” Feeney said. “So [teacher Shawn Schmitter] asked me to do it.”
The lobster will be dropped from above the roof of Pat’s Pizza on New Year’s Eve as part of the first ever Downeast Lobstah Drop.
Pat’s Pizza owner Bill Burke, who is organizing the event, asked Washington Academy if students would be willing to build the lobster.
“He asked if we might be interested in helping out and I said, ‘Yeah,’” art teacher Tyler Goodwin said.
Art students under Goodwin’s tutelage designed the lobster, which will be holding a blueberry rake in one claw and will have a vine of blueberries in the other. A wreath is to be hung above the lobster but will not drop. Blueberries, lobster and wreaths are three items symbolic of Machias, according to organizers of the event.
The lobster is estimated to weigh about 50 pounds.
The process began with a six-inch model designed by student Anastasia Dubrovina, Goodwin said. After that, students used the model to create a full-size cardboard body for the lobster. Then they put the plaster on it.
“That was the first time I’ve ever plastered,” freshman art student Madilyn Newcomb said Friday. Plaster “feels really cool.”
Goodwin said art students were so excited about the project that they wanted to paint the lobster right after it got its coat of plaster. But it had to be sent to the school’s marine tech department for fiberglass and resin.
Schmitter, who serves as a marine tech teacher, said the fiberglass and resin were added because Burke wanted something that would last for years, to be used over and over.
Students wore masks when they worked not because of the fiberglass but rather the resin, which burns as it hardens, they said.
Villone and Feeney, who were among nine marine tech students who worked on the project, also wore gloves.
“That helped a little bit. I still got [resin] all over me,” Feeney said.
The lobster was to get a base coat of red paint on Saturday and then go back to the art department Monday for detail work.
Because it will be up in the air and seen only from a distance, the detail work will not be difficult.
“We’re not doing tiny little detail work,” Goodwin said. “It’s going to be pretty basic.”
Newcomb, like the other art students, is looking forward to doing more work on the lobster.
“I’m excited to test my skills at mixing paints and everything,” she said Friday.
Goodwin guessed that about 15 art students participated in the project.
“I think for some of them it’s not just an art project. It’s something everybody’s going to see,” Goodwin said. “It’s less about really learning the techniques but applying them on a larger scale.”
Newcomb, Feeney and Villone all plan to attend the Lobstah Drop event where they will see their creation as the centerpiece when the new year is welcomed.
“I hope everyone loves [the lobster] as much as I do,” Newcomb said.
Everyone involved was pleased with the opportunity to take on such a project.
“I think it’s great for the students — something they’ll actually see that they did here,” Schmitter said.
“I’m just pleased that Washington Academy can contribute to the brand new celebration,” MaryEllen Day, assistant head of school, said. “We have so much talent that I love for the community to see.”