Chris Woodman

Dave and I ran into one another a few times around Easthampton over the years, and at Art In the Orchard 2021, our installations were set up near each another. He gave me a card with his website info, so I checked it out and I saw that he likes to collaborate. So I asked him if he’d like to do something together for AiO 2023 and he happily agreed. We created “After the Fall” together, a giant wasp nest that also held a sacred space, and we were close ever since.

In 2024, Dave asked me to be his teammate for “Fen Art”, a hay sculpture competition in Pontebba, Italy, and persuaded me to go. Dave was just the kind of friend I needed: a like-minded friend who lived nearby, who was always up for adventures and able to gently coax me out of my comfort zone in positive ways. Who doesn’t need someone like that in their life?

Brian McQuillan reached out and asked if I’d be up for making the hat. I was thrilled, and got right on it. When I met up with John Collins, who was sculpting Dave’s head, he gifted me a plaster casting of the bust to work with for sizing and scale. I now have Dave in my office to set me straight when my mind leads me astray into seriousness or fear.

This project is EXACTLY the kind of thing that made Dave tick. There was a day when four of us were building up the pumpkin structure, and the talent, laughs, and smiles involved made for a Dave-perfect moment. Dave would always say that his creative goal was generally just “to make people smile.”