Richard Hochstein has had his own construction business for years and has built many lovely homes in the area. He tells the story of the concrete structures on which the mosaics are displayed.

My construction skills came in handy when it came to creating benches and planter boxes downtown, one of which you see here. It was Battle Lake's Art Advisory committee that came up with the idea for concrete structures. When they asked if I'd help build them, they handed me a 3 x 5 -inch cardboard model of what they wanted. So far, so good!

When the time came to build, three of us -John Everts, Jonathan Hartman and I-gathered in my shop over several evenings. We'd gotten the lumber that we would need to frame forms, into which cement would be poured. All of us have a lot of experience, so we started measuring, cutting and screwing pieces together. Soon the shape was looking like the cardboard model they'd given me. Later one of those evenings, we took a close look at what we were doing. Due to the complicated compound angles, and other difficult parts of the design, we'd built the form backwards and had to start over!

When we finally finished, we hauled the forms to Everts Lumber for the cement work. We had a crew of six men pouring the cement into the forms---all donating their time and expertise.

At the end of the day, we stood back and looked at our handiwork. The finished benches and planter boxes were impressive ...including the washed aggregate surfaces. We'd thought of everything, right down to the slots for the forklift tines, needed to move them to the downtown sidewalks.

I think it was John Everts who said "These are so beautiful, they're probably going to ask us to build a lot more of them. We looked at each other and said, "No way." Well, maybe it was closer to "Heck No!"

But the five we built sit proudly on the streets of Battle Lake. The planter at this location represents our natural resources. The mosaic waves remind us of waves on our area's many lakes. The metal heron structure, created by metal artist Paul Boyum, represents a big part of our natural habitat.

I'm proud to have been part of creating this public art for our downtown!