A note from artist Stan McCuen from Lockwood Valley

It wasn’t too difficult to find the metal fish, ducks and geese I’d made in my studio two years ago for the “Spirit of the Pond” installation.

My wife Cindy keeps them stashed around our property in Lockwood Valley, near each of the trees.

However, she lays claim to the running goose.

At first I thought if they made just one person laugh or even smile, it would be worth breaking lockdown for just a few minutes to put them back in the Frazier Mountain Park pond last week.

After collecting them all, I decided it would be hilarious to put masks on them. First for fun, then to send a message: “Please wear a mask! If not for yourself then for the rest of us.”

I’m older and not as strong as some of you, so I need your help. I see so many people all over town not wearing a mask…then watch the speed with which Covid-19 is spreading: 5, 12, 26, 59, now 107 positives almost overnight. People are dying because other people aren’t wearing masks.

What is the issue about wearing a mask for a few weeks? Businesses are closing because they can’t all safely wear one.

Maybe it is vanity: I don’t look good in one. People can’t see how good-looking I am. Masks smear my make up. It wrecks my mustache. They steam up my Foster Grants and hide my pearly whites.

I don’t know, but next to lockdown, maybe the governor needs to mandate a mask for folks to get the point?

The sooner we all wear a mask, the sooner none of us will need to.

Not knowing who has enjoyed the fish at close range, Stan McCuen, retired from the oil refining industry, says they will remain until this health issue has passed. We reported his guerrilla art in “Calling to the Spirit of the Pond” on May 4, 2018.

Photo captions:

‘I’m all about the masks!’ Stan McCuen said. So are his little friends that he created for Frazier Mountain Park. McCuen believes masks will save lives.

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This is part of the April 10, 2020 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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