With a steady hand and a spark-shooting plasma cutter, Lafayette artist Beth Stade hand-cut the path of the Big Thompson River into more than 100 small pieces of guardrail from U.S. 34 in the canyon between Loveland and Estes Park.
Each, which she sketched free hand with chalk, is slightly different, much like the river on any given day.
The Colorado Department of Transportation, which recently finished a $280 million reconstruction of the highway after the 2013 flood, commissioned the project, asking Stade to come up with mementos to be given to dignitaries and stakeholders at a grand opening celebration on May 31.
Each of the 120 pieces shows the path of the river up the canyon, including the horseshoe curve of the river — a section where U.S. 34 was obliterated during both the 1976 and 2013 floods.
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