In Wednesday’s edition of The Coast Daily, we asked our beloved readers to tell us how they feel about the province blasting away the Highway 103 boulders with painted-on eyes.
Over the weekend, CBC News published an article revealing the artists responsible for the eyeball rocks—Jason Smith, his friend Neil, and their kids. They painted the rocks all the way back in October 2017, and while the plan was to make them look like emojis, a sudden stroke of inspiration led them to paint the eyes. They’ve been watching drivers on the 103 ever since.
However, due to the twinning of the 103, the province has plans to blast the boulders. Smith himself told CBC that while the decision is sad, he’s OK with it if it needs to be done.
Regardless, we asked a vital question, maybe the most important of our time: would you rather see the rocks blasted as planned, or preserved in some sort of way? The results are in, and they’re a little surprising.
Out of a total 860 votes, 588 (68.37 percent) of you said you’d rather see the rocks preserved in some way. In my mind, I can’t imagine it would be all that difficult to move the rocks elsewhere, but I’d hazard to guess it’s cheaper to blast them than get a piece of heavy equipment to move them.
Of course, this means that 272 (31.63 percent) of you are utterly heartless! How dare you want to destroy these beautiful eyes? Jokes aside, I get it—they’re boulders, after all, and they’re in the way of a project that will (hopefully) make our roads safer.
Here is some of what you folks had to say about the situation:
Save the eyes!
“I think with the world being in the mess it is we should keep things like this that make people smile.”
“I saw them for the first time a few days ago. I had heard about them before. Something positive and something that adds joy to people’s lives should stay, 100 percent. To be uplifted is worth its weight in gold.”
“Why can’t they just be moved to another location?”
“Would look fab along the waterfront.”
“There are always cranes working on the highway. Move them over and replace them.”
“Move them to a different position, might be cheaper to move than to blast away.”
Blast the eyes!
“Come on… this is not a historic artifact. They can paint eyes somewhere else along the route.”
“I’d love for the eyes to be saved, but in the big scheme of things, I’d rather that the province focus on more important issues. I think that it was beautiful that these rocks served as a canvas for this art but it’s okay that the art is ephemeral. I hope someone discovers new rocks that inspire them to create highway art.”
“Unless there is a donation of money to move the eyes at no cost to the community. Otherwise, they are not necessary.”
“I think the province could just invite them back to paint something on different rocks once the twinning is complete, and start something new for us to enjoy seeing as we travel the highway.”
“Gaudy paintings do not enhance the natural beauty. Stop this trend (of painting) roadside rocks!”