Who doesn’t want to own a wooden Canucks beer whiskey cupboard?

Huge ups to Jason M. for sending us this prize winning Craigslist ad:

Vancouver Canucks Celebratory Bear Whiskey Cupboard – $11000 (UBC)
Here are 8 pictures of my latest functional sculpture, The Vancouver Canucks Celebratory Whiskey Cupboard. It is up for sale and I’d like you to have the first opportunity to purchase it. Certainly the bear could find no better home than yours. 

Five years ago or so, the Cyprus tree in our back yard died and had to be felled. The crotch of that tree with two branches stemming from it looked like bear’s legs so that’s how it started. 

Back in the day, my son and I were avid fans of the Vancouver Grizzlies. Looking at that piece of the tree, I imagined the Grizzlies’ out-of-work mascot shifting his focus to hockey to become a Canucks devotee–that’s the idea behind the piece.

Long before the playoffs–about halfway through the 2011 NHL season, I started to build and sculpt the bear.

Made entirely of found materials, the cabinet, shoulders and hat are a glued up mix of softwoods scavenged from discarded furniture and/or framing lumber; the arms and feet are limbs from the same Cyprus tree as the legs; and the head is a single chunk of red cedar hollowed out completely to reduce weight. After piecing it all together by hand, I carved it with a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder–nothing else except for the knife I used to sign the label on the jeans, Jim B. Checks in the top of the log inside the cupboard were filled with wedges of cherry. From foot to tip of beer bottle, this celebratory bear/whiskey cupboard stands an impressive 7 feet tall to honour the heroic efforts of the Vancouver Canucks throughout the 2011 NHL season. Built to keep alive our hope of certain victory this year, it’s a one-of-a-kind piece commemorating the most exciting season of hockey that I for one have ever seen. 

Although I’m still doing final touches on the paint job, the bear is nearly finished. I’ve yet to complete certain details of the bear’s costume. Specifically, the block letter V for Vancouver on the jersey, the letters CCM on the jersey, the ‘Hockey Briefs’ writing on his underwear band, and the beer needs a label. If you are a brewer, that label could be yours. 

From start to finish, the bear took 3 months to complete to this stage. Now it’s time to find it a good home so I’m looking for a buyer. I can easily imagine any Canucks fan sliding off the doors to the bear’s chest to pull out a bottle of 60 year old scotch to toast his team for a job well done in 2011, and again next year after the Canucks win the Stanley Cup in 2012. 

If you’d like to buy the bear, I’m open to offers and will accept the first reasonable offer to come my way. In thinking about an offer please consider that I would like to be compensated for the three months it took me to make the bear, production costs, and something more for artistic merit, bearing in mind that this is a one-of-a-kind, never to be reproduced work of big city folk art made by a guy whose been doing this sort of thing for 25 years.

One more thing–A name could be added to the back of the jersey. Given my dance background, I’d name it Bearishnykov if I were to keep the cupboard for myself.

James (Jim B.) Bailey”

Who doesn't want to own a wooden Canucks beer whiskey cupboard?Who doesn't want to own a wooden Canucks beer whiskey cupboard?
Who doesn't want to own a wooden Canucks beer whiskey cupboard?Who doesn't want to own a wooden Canucks beer whiskey cupboard?

That bear looks a lot like a moose without antlers. Someone should tell Jim-B to drill a hole in it and put Luongo’s name/number on the back.

Figures a ‘Nucks fan makes a bear. 

Also, that guy dances?

Might need to create a new DOY character — Bearishnykov.

$11,000? Yowzer.

This is just awful. 

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