Sea shells, beach brick and volcanic pumice: By the time the new Homer Public Library sign is installed this month, it will not only represent the town&rsquo;s hallmark coastal beauty, it will contain it.
The sign, commissioned by the City of Homer to local artist Brad Hughes, is nearing completion in an outside workshop at Hughes&rsquo; home. The sign weighs in around 3,000 pounds, and is made of literally hundreds of pounds of beach materials ground into grains from sand-fine to shell shards and tiny stones. Reinforced with steel plating, as well as rebar, the structure could well last for the next 500 years, Hughes said.
&ldquo;You get the colors from what I call beach bricks &ndash; these orange rocks you find on the beach (that fall from beneath the coal seams). You get white from the shells, black from coal and then mix them like paint with cement,&rdquo; Hughes explained, gesturing to materials graded by sizes in buckets around his shop. 