MONROE — Bigfoot weighs heavily on Terry Carrigan’s mind, and it’s only a matter of time before Sasquatch comes to life.
What’s up with that?
Carrigan started building the 8-foot Bigfoot in February. The 80-pound bags of concrete kept adding up for the big dude.
“Last night I was so tired, as soon as I lay down my brain started thinking, ‘Shoot, how much is he going to weigh? Is my Bobcat going to be able to lift him up to get on the trailer?’” he said last week.
Measurements for a giant Bigfoot creation made by Terry Carrigan, 60, at his home-based Skywater Studios on Sunday, April 14, 2024 in Monroe, Washington. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
He made the sculpture, estimated to weigh 1,500 pounds, at his home-based Skywater Studios deep on 5 acres in the woods between Monroe and Sultan.
“I’m the kind of person people call when they don’t know who to contact to get something made,” he said. “That’s what we do, make unusual things.”
This weekend, he plans to display Bigfoot at his booth at the “Oddmall: Emporium of the Weird” expo at the Monroe fairgrounds. For $15,000 you can take Bigfoot home, though you’ll need a big truck. A 4-foot sea turtle he made, weighing a mere 220 pounds, is $1,500.
A sea turtle that Terry Carrigan, 60, made at his home-based Skywater Studios on Sunday, April 14, 2024 in Monroe, Washington. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Smaller Skywater Studios wares include a urethane dental-like mold of a mouth that holds 28 driver bits, complete with silicone tongue, $37 with the bits, or $27 without. A skull that holds paint brushes or longer driver bits is $25.
Oddmall has artists, crafters, jugglers, authors, illustrators and purveyors of unusual things: dolls made out of animal bones, Star Trek potholders, glass mushrooms. For people not in this realm, it is easy to forget that such creativity exists. Even more of a reason to go. The all-ages event is free.
A creation made by Terry Carrigan, 60, at his home-based Skywater Studios on Sunday, April 14, 2024 in Monroe, Washington. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Carrigan, 60, is experienced with the tools of the trade. He made Halloween haunts at Knott’s Berry Farm theme park in California and created props for Disneyland and other attractions.
His wife, Julie Bach, also an artist, is in charge of paint.
“I’m colorblind,” he said.
In 2015, the couple moved to Washington to get out of California. In the sticks south of the Skykomish River, they built a temporary studio and kept adding to it.
He put up a web page offering custom fabrications.
“People started calling me,” he said. “Every project is unique.”
Terry Carrigan, 60, adds touches to the base of a giant Bigfoot he made at his home-based Skywater Studios on Sunday, April 14, 2024 in Monroe, Washington. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Projects include a 9-foot stiletto high heel made of rolls of real toilet paper and escape room themes.
A 5-foot green apple with a bite taken out in The Schoolhouse District community hub in downtown Woodinville caught the attention of Ron Nardone. You know, the owner of NardoLand, that wacky wonderland of giant sculptures, vintage signs, replica gas station and other buildings on his acreage on Paradise Lake Road in Maltby.
Nardone commissioned Carrigan to make a big red apple, without the bite, and a 6-foot ice cream cone.
“The guy is a great artist and I am going to have him keep doing stuff,” Nardone said. He’s considering a Colonel Sanders statue to go with the giant KFC bucket and chicken on the grounds.
A giant Bigfoot creation made by Terry Carrigan, 60, at his home-based Skywater Studios on Sunday, April 14, 2024 in Monroe, Washington. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Nardone contemplated buying Bigfoot, but decided, “It doesn’t fit my theme.”
Carrigan is making him a 10-foot bottle of ketchup that will say “NardoLand” in Heinz script.
“I’m supposed to have been working on that instead of Bigfoot, but I got sidetracked,” he said.
Carrigan used a 3D printer to make a little model of the sea turtle for scale. He didn’t use it for Bigfoot, but can print a 20-inch model of the finished product, if you want.
A 6-foot octopus with big tentacles for ponds or gardens is swirling around his imagination.
“I want to do more and more of my own sculptures,” he said.
Bigfoot was a natural figure to make in the Pacific Northwest.
“It would be great to have by the driveway in the woods,” he said.
Every strand of hair is handcrafted, as is every muscle.
Under the fur are sculpted biceps and abs. Carrigan studied the brawny physiques of bodybuilders in an “Ironman” magazine he saved from 1992 to get the anatomy right for Bigfoot’s bod.
“If you look at a lot of large-sized sculptures, especially of Bigfoot, they all look kind of hokey,” he said. “And I don’t want this to look hokey.”
Bigfoot hokey? Uh, never.
See Sasquatch and more
“Oddmall: Emporium of the Weird” is 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe.
Is there a person, place or thing making you wonder “What’s Up With That?” Contact reporter Andrea Brown: 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @reporterbrown.
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