Saugus resident’s sculpture honors bombing victims

SAUGUS – Local artist Sean Fitzpatrick was headed to a sand sculpting competition in Texas last weekend when, at the last minute, he decided to change his design to honor the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing.Fitzpatrick, a Saugus resident who owns Fitzy Snowman Sculpting, erected a giant, 6-foot eagle with “Boston Strong” carved on the front. On the back are the names of the four people killed by the alleged bombing suspects: MIT police officer Sean Collier, Krystle Campbell, Martin Richard and Lingzi Lu.”I was ready to do a more competitive piece. Then all this stuff in Boston happened,” he said. “I was going to do a real contemporary, kind of Zen piece ? Literally right after this happened, I was talking to my wife about it and she said, ‘You know what? You should probably do something for what happened.’ It was kind of a healing piece.”Fitzpatrick said he came up with the design shortly before he left for the contest last week. The contest was held in Port Aransas, a small coastal town on the Gulf of Mexico, about 40 miles east of Corpus Christi.”It kind of took on a life of its own,” he said. “It was so overwhelming. I broke down a couple of times when I was carving it, especially when I was doing the names on the back.”Fitzpatrick, who garnered local media attention for carving the Nemo snow sculpture over the winter, sculpted the eagle out of a 10-ton block of compacted sand, packed together with water and wooden frames. From there, Fitzpatrick said “you have to picture the sculpture already in the block,” and then take away everything that’s not a part of it.Fitzpatrick said he had a steady stream of Texans coming up to him to thank him for his sculpture. And even though it didn’t win, Fitzpatrick said the emotional response was just what he and “a lot of people” needed.”I was in a funk after it all happened,” he said. “I was home watching it on TV like everyone else. It gives you that knot in your stomach. I just didn’t feel right. For me as an artist, that’s how we communicate. It kind just lets you get it out there ? I fell short of the people’s choice by two votes, but it wasn’t really about winning a prize. I knew it wouldn’t meet the criteria for judging, but I was OK with that.”Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected].