In 2015, the students in the Innisdale Integrated Arts Program produced a multi-media arts presentation (poetry, music, dance, paintings and sculpture) for the new Cancer Treatment Centre at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie. One piece was a sculpture of a dandelion gone to seed with one of the parachutes (wishes) about to take flight. A teacher in Collingwood, Deb Shackell, who was familiar with Haliburton Sculpture Forest was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and went to RVH for treatments and saw the sculpture. The dandelion and the saying “Some see a weed; I see a wish” has long been her personal coda – and seeing this sculpture gave her great hope and inspiration. She got in contact with the Sculpture Forest curator and said that she would like to raise the money to get a similar sculpture for the Sculpture Forest. The program coordinators at Innisdale said that they would be interested in having the class of 2019-2020 create a new sculpture for the Sculpture Forest (using the ideas and inspirations of the current students). Deb and the Sculpture Forest curator met with the students a couple of times; there was lots of back and forth on the design. Meanwhile, after a year of treatment, Deb was cancer free and she mounted a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe as well as produced and sold art cards with inspirational photography. The Sculpture was going to be installed in the spring of 2020 but COVID-19 got in the way. All the pieces of the sculpture had been created – it just needed to be brought to Haliburton and installed. The four teachers from Innisdale arranged to bring the pieces of the sculpture to Haliburton in November 2020 where it was assembled and installed.
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