Petra Rigging Well Underway

March 15, 2005 == MEDIA ADVISORY
<<For pictures of the rigging see
http://www.calvin.edu/petra/news/2005-march09.php >>

Brian McDowell was just a little anxious, he says, when he hoisted a 2,000
pound bust of Dushara onto a pedestal at Calvin College's Prince Conference
Center with a forklift and hydraulic boom.

"It's exciting to see something that old," he says, "but it makes you a little
nervous because it's irreplaceable."

McDowell, a rigging specialist and crane operator with Allendale-based West
Shore Services, Inc. is installing the heaviest of the 2,000-year-old artifacts
for Petra: Lost City of Stone, the multimedia exhibition of Nabataean culture
coming to Calvin from April 4 through August 15, 2005.

"I've never done anything with stone and artifacts of this nature," Mc Dowell
says.

The bust of Dushara is but one of some 200 Nabataean artifacts - along with
video, a textiles exhibit and virtual reality features - that make Petra: Lost
City of Stone the most comprehensive display of Nabataean culture ever
exhibited.

Dushara is not the heaviest thing McDowell has lifted. That would be the
90-ton steam engine he installed in Traverse City. Nor is Dushara the most
awkward thing he has handled. That would be the Blue Whale skeleton, which
long hung at the main entrance of the old Grand Rapids Public Museum - and
which West Shore moved and hung in its new spot at the Grand Rapids Public
Museum Van Andel Center.

Dushara does, however, present some special challenges to the rigging
company.

"The relics are old, so you have to take special care," says Paul Christenson,
a West Shore installer who is working with McDowell.

"You don't touch it with your hands," says McDowell of the bust. "Your oils
out of your hands can stain the stone. And you have to be careful where you're
putting the rigging equipment, because some of it (the artifacts) is quite
frail and some of it has been put back together. You have to be so careful that
you don't crush it or break a little piece of it."

The answer, both men say, is to know your equipment and know exactly what
you're lifting.

And the rigging of Petra: Lost City of Stone was eased, they say, by how the
exhibition was packed. Each relic arrived with its proper rigging straps packed
in its crate.

"Fortunately, we've been able to lean on the expertise of two world-class
institutions that have put this exhibit together," says Joel Zwart, Calvin's
director of exhibitions and the on-site curator for Petra: Lost City of Stone
together.

The exhibition is a collaborative effort of the Cincinnati Art Museum and the
American Museum of Natural History in New York. Cincinnati has lent Calvin
several personnel, including chief preparator Chris Williams, to make sure
Calvin's exhibition is properly and safely installed.

Zwart was quick to praise West Shore's crew.

"It was one of those things that was providential," Zwart says. "We needed a
rigging company, and there was one right here in town. And their references
were great. It's nice to have a company with experience in moving things like
trains because you know it's going to be able to move rocks."

McDowell and Christenson can't wait to show off those "rocks" to their
families.

"It's like opening a Christmas present," says Christenson of the exhibition.
"You're in awe."

Organized by the American Museum of Natural History and the Cincinnati Art
Museum, and presented under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania
Al-Abdullah of Jordan, Petra is the first major cultural collaboration between
Jordan and the United States. Air transportation generously provided by Royal
Jordanian. At Calvin College a lead, local sponsor for Petra is Huntington
Bank - West Michigan.

-end-
Received on Tue Mar 15 13:35:13 2005