Cayman currently has three statues created by Canadian sculptor Simon Morris – two underwater, the ‘Amphitrite’ mermaid at Sunset House and the ‘Guardian of the Reef’ at Divetech at Lighthouse Point, and one on land, ‘Tradition’ in Heroes Square.
Now, moves are afoot for a fourth statue, another mermaid by Morris, to be placed here.
The ‘Angel of the Reef’ mermaid “shares the same DNA” as Sunset’s ‘Amphitrite’, but is also distinctly different, Morris told the Compass.
The bronze sculpture, which would also feature a stingray and a green sea turtle, would be placed at Soto’s Reef in George Town, in front of Living the Dream’s store on the waterfront, if all goes as planned.
The placement of the 9-foot-tall sculpture is dependent on a coastal works licence from Cabinet.
The idea for the sculpture came in 2022, following a conversation between Morris and author Nicholas Harvey, who writes the AJ Bailey novels, set in the Cayman Islands. At the time, Harvey was in the process of writing a novella called ‘Angels of the Deep’ with fellow author Nick Sullivan.
Morris and Harvey were put in contact with one another by Drew McArthur, a photographer and dive instructor who used to work in Cayman and has provided Harvey with photographs for his book covers.
“About two and a half years ago, Nick [Harvey] was working on his new book and it was going to include some stuff about a sculpture underwater,” Morris recalled.
Harvey phoned Morris to pick his brains on the subject of bronze sculpting and during their conversation, Harvey mentioned that he enjoyed seeing both of Morris’s underwater statues at Sunset and Divetech when he dived in Grand Cayman. Morris told him that, in fact, he had three pieces in Cayman.
“I said the third one was not underwater. It’s a piece called ‘Tradition’ in Heroes Square. It was made for the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Cayman Islands by Christopher Columbus and was unveiled by Prince Edward.
“There was silence.
“And then, Nick said, ‘You have made a piece that was unveiled by a member of British royalty?'”
Harvey told the Compass he was “blown away” when Morris told him this, because of the coincidental similarities this had with story plot in the book.
Harvey went on to tell Morris that the novella he was writing with Sullivan involved members of the British royal family coming to Cayman to unveil an underwater statue made by a well-known sculptor. There is an assassination attempt involving explosives being placed in the crate carrying the statue, which is “blown into a million pieces”, but the plan is scuppered and the royals are saved.
Harvey asked Morris if he’d be willing to be featured in the book under his real name as the sculptor in the story.
“I thought it was a hysterical idea,” Morris said, and agreed.
Harvey’s design for the statue in the book included what he considered to be three iconic images associated with diving in the Cayman Islands – the mermaid, stingrays and sea turtles.
The stingray floats atop her back like a cape, or as Morris says, “from a certain angle when you’re diving, like wings”. Hence, the ‘Angel of the Deep’.
Infatuated
“So, the book came out and after six months, I became infatuated with the concept of building this thing and seeing if I could put it underwater in Cayman,” Morris said.
Then, on his way to visiting the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism booth at the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association, known as DEMA, show in Las Vegas, he got chatting with Gary and Liz Frost, owners of Living the Dream dive operation, who had the booth next door.
Once he told them of his plan for the sculpture, they said they wanted to get involved, and he has been working with them since November last year on the project.
Though work on the actual sculpture has yet to begin, Morris has already created a number of smaller versions of the bronze mermaid that are 18 inches tall. And prints of the mermaid are also available.
Harvey, who is currently in Cayman on a four-week trip with his wife, told the Compass that in his and Sullivan’s book, the mermaid statue is destroyed when it is blown up, but in a follow-up story in his AJ Bailey series, a new one will be created – by Morris – and placed underwater at Bob Soto’s Reef as part of the plot.
Sullivan and Harvey have collaborated before, and their characters make cameo appearances in each other’s books.
“We work in the same genre and are among the few writers who base our stories around scuba diving in our adventure mysteries,” Harvey said.
He explained, when writing ‘Angels of the Deep’, part of the storyline took the characters to Little Cayman. So, he invented a workshop for Morris there.
“I told Simon, now you have a small studio on Little Cayman, as well as your place in Canada,” he said.
Harvey recalls getting a message from Morris telling him that he couldn’t stop thinking about the ‘Angels of the Deep’ statue concept and that he thought it would make a “fabulous piece”.
“I agreed. He said he wanted to create it and I was all thumbs up,” he said.
The statue won’t be making an appearance in Cayman anytime this year, Morris notes.
Funding needs to be found for it, as the sculptor points out that, since COVID, the price of bronze has skyrocketed. And there’s already a backlog of work at the foundry in Oregon where his statues are cast. From the time his order is placed, it will take about 10 months to be completed, he said.
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