HIGHLAND — He may not appear to be all that tough, considering the 13-foot-tall knight in the commons area of Lone Peak High School is a papier-mache warrior.
But he is a strong one.
He'll measure up just fine in a battle.
Just ask Michelle Shepherd, the art and sculpture teacher who created him out of 300 pounds of shredded paper and 360 pounds of wheat paste.
"You wouldn't think it would be very strong, but I had to take a saw to him to cut off the hand so I could redo it," Shepherd said. "It wasn't an easy thing. Papier-mache is not as fragile as people think. But the beauty is, if it does get broken or damaged, it's easily fixed."
True, the tall new knight was fabricated from paper and paste, but there are multiple layers of the dried pulp that have been applied over the past three years. Then the frame was covered in acrylic gesso before it was painted black and gold.
The result is a durable larger-than-life-size replica of the knight who adorns the school's facade, the school stationery and is featured in the school logo.
"I didn't put a metal frame inside him, because metal gets in my way," Shepherd said. "He's just built around a frame of butcher paper and masking tape."
The armored statue, complete with helmet, visor, gloves, sword and feathers, was constructed in a prone position on the art room floor. When it was stood up, the head literally went through the ceiling.
It was moved to a room down the hall where a bay window allowed Shepherd more working room.
The knight-in-progress was turned over and around periodically by male students in the Future Farmers of America program who were sufficiently strong to heft him without injury.
The FFA students lifted the finished product onto a dolly and dragged and rolled the big knight to his planter box in the commons area.
"It turned out to be a really big thing. We thought we could do it in one period, but it ended up taking most of the day," Shepherd said. "We had practically the whole school watching us. We had the lariats, a cherry-picker and the FFA kids standing guard. Everybody cheered when we finally got him in place and upright."
Shepherd created the knight by herself but her classes over the years watched him grow from a skinny skeleton of paper to a bulky, well-muscled knight carrying a seven-foot sword.
Shepherd figures she's put more than 600 hours into the work. She's donated the cost of materials and her time.
"It isn't that much. Paper's easy to get, and paste is relatively cheap," she said. "And I figure it's my contribution to the school."
The knight took his place in the planter box at the school's junior prom in April, but that wasn't the end of the project.
"We had to weld him in and strap him down securely. It took a while," Shepherd said. "But now he's in, he won't be moving."
You can reach Sharon Haddock by e-mail at haddoc@desnews.com