Dragon sculpture raises funds for breast cancer awareness
The luminous green dragon rises up, spreading its iridescent wings while fire shoots out of its mouth to attack blobs of cancer cells.
Paddi Paddle-Up, a 9-foot mixed-media dragon sculpture, stood tall last weekend on the shore of Flathead Lake for the annual Montana Dragon Boat Festival at the Flathead Lake Lodge. The dragon was the creation of Whitefish counselor and artist Susan Lombardi as an effort to raise money for breast cancer awareness.
“This is about saving our girlfriends,” Lombardi said. “I’m so tired of having friends die of cancer it makes me want to scream.”
Lombardi spent the past year, along with the help of a team of artists, constructing the dragon. Glass wafers slumped together form the scaly body and head of the dragon. Bronze was cast to form feet with long claws. Wooden paddles fan out to hold the shimmering fabric for the wings. Globs of glass and metal intertwine to make cancer cells.
During the festival people were asked to deposit donations in the dragon’s tail. The cancer destroying dragon was described as being on a mission to destroy all the cancer cells throughout the land.
Breast cancer fundraising during dragon boat festivals is a common theme. At noon on Saturday during the festival in Bigfork, participants paused for a special rose ceremony to honor those who have battled breast cancer.
Breast cancer survivor dragon boat paddling began in Canada in 1996 when Dr. Don McKenzie challenged the prevailing medical opinion and encouraged exercise in breast cancer rehabilitation. He specifically recommended paddling in the 46-foot long Hong Kong-style boats that typically have a painted dragon head on the bow and dragon tail on the stern.
But, Lombardi knew none of this history when she attended last year’s festival on Flathead Lake. She became intrigued by the call for “paddles up” that come when racers raise their paddles in the air together before taking off to race the boats across the water. She eventually learned more about the sports connection to breast cancer and was inspired to create a dragon.
Lombardi envisions a day when high school and college art departments build their own dragons to help fight against cancer.
“I want to populate the world with a squadron of dragons,” she said.
Lombardi has spent much of her life creating art and helping people through her work as a licensed clinical therapist. Her art focuses primarily on glass. She created a set of glass sculptures inspired by breast cancer patients that remains on display at North Valley Hospital.
Following last year’s festival, she got to work right away first creating a prototype dragon from spray foam before spending the year crafting the final sculpture.
Lombardi painstakingly smashed glass in a unique technique that creates palm-sized multi-colored wafers that are eventually melted together in a kiln to form the dragon’s skin. About three weeks ago, she placed the head into her kiln, and because of a power outage during the firing, the whole piece shattered.
“I realized that the face was too pretty,” she said. “All the mistakes and accidents were to make it better.”
Early on she knew she wanted to create the structure of the wings out of paddles to tie in the dragon boats. She contacted Whitefish resident Bill Tarr, who volunteered to create custom curved wooden paddles for the dragon. Her brother Richard Schioldager helped with the paddles and has worked alongside his sister through the whole process.
Another Whitefish artist, Mary Conway, served as assistant through the year-long process and created the glass blob cancer cell. Marty Martain welded the base of the dragon from steel donated by Acutech.
“It was a process that caused me to strategize every day,” she said. “I had to figure it out the whole way. You have to be willing to go into the unknown and to take risks.”