Hatter honours late bull rider with sculpture

By Jeremy Appel on September 4, 2018.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel

Medicine Hatter Marina Cole was recently in Merritt, B.C., to deliver one of her chainsaw wood sculptures to a family whose 25-year-old bull rider son died after a struggle with CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Cole was in Merritt last year for a sculpting competition, the winner of which received the opportunity to make a sculpture in honour of the deceased cowboy, Ty Pozzobon, who committed suicide.

“I felt a connection with Ty,” said Cole. “I followed his story because I thought it was so tragic … Unfortunately, he never had any control on himself.”

Cole went to Merritt this past week to unveil the piece, which coincided with the local rodeo, of which Pozzobon was an active participant.

She’s been making art with a chainsaw for about two years, making more sculptures than she can count.

“It’s definitely a little scary every time I go to work,” said Cole. “I started using it because I was using hand tools prior and it just wasn’t moving really fast for me, so I couldn’t do a lot of large pieces.

“With a chainsaw, I knew I could make things progress a lot faster and do a lot of larger pieces.”

The Pozzobon sculpture is one of the larger pieces Cole has worked on, which the Pozzobon family commissioned to keep Ty’s memory alive in town.

The statue, which features a life-size replica of Ty standing in front of a bull, is 14 feet tall at its highest point.

“I don’t know if they were planning on having such a large piece, but they wanted something in (his) memory to keep in town, because he was such a big member of Merritt,” Cole said.

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