"The inspiration for Time Top came from a comic strip by William Ritt and Clarence Gray called The Time Top that the artist read as a child. In it’s last episode, the Time Top was slowing down over the ocean . . . And the artist has picked up the story line from there and is presenting this sculpture as “a relic of reality, building on the idea of an alternative reality which we each share with a broad diversity. “ A comic book describing the artist’s creative and fabrication processes will be published to coincide with the opening event scheduled for early October 2006. After being fabricated out of silicon bronze by the Harman Foundry in Sechelt, BC, Time Top was submerged into the ocean water at Gibsons, BC for two years. While submerged, it was connected to an electrical power supply which delivered a low voltage charge to the bronze causing it to attract a deposition of seawater minerals on to it’s surface forming a crust. This process is known as “Electro-deposition of minerals in seawater” or accretion. When the accretion process was complete, the sculpture was fitted with a polycarbonate dome and now stands 13 feet tall and 10 feet wide. A series of granite cap stones, inscribed with images from the original comic strip, have been installed along the sea wall in front of the sculpture. The sculpture fabrication was completed after the artist’s death in 2003 by a team led by Margaret Pethick, Jerry’s wife, according to his fully documented drawings, specifications and instructions." - Maureen Smith, Concord Pacific, August 2006
The book was published on the occasion of the launch of the Time Top Project public art work created by Jerry Pethick in October 2006, commissioned by Concord Pacific Group Inc. The publication contains a pull out booklet with a text by Margaret Pethick and a comic strip drawn by Neil Wedman. Essays by Scott Watson and a forward by Jack Jeffrey.
43 pages, colour, includes 8-page b/w comic book
2007