SALT LAKE CITY — If you have been on social media or in person, you may have seen the buzz around some new creatures that have popped up in Salt Lake City named Hoodah and Kosmo.
Hoodah, a 15-foot-tall wooden troll, and Kosmo, a 20-foot steel Kosmoceratops, now sit on the city’s west side as a whimsical touch to the Granary district.
But these giant art pieces have left many people curious, wanting to know more about where they came from or who made them.
Well, they came from Garth Franklin's workshop and the creative mind of this artist.
His everyday job involves woodworking, creating things like tables and chairs.
"No two days are the same. Every new project has problem-solving and new design elements," Franklin explained.
That was until an idea came around for a project up in Park City.
"It all started from a small troll. I made a troll about four feet tall,” he said.
The piece was placed as part of an exhibit, but afterward, it just sat around his house.
“He looked kind of rough, so I went to throw him away in the woodshop dumpster. Then I thought, 'I might as well just put him out in this empty lot.' But then a lot of people saw it, and they got excited,” Franklin said.
So excited, in fact, that the Granary District Alliance asked if he could make a big one — and that's how Hoodah was born.
"I had a crew of maybe like eight or so volunteers throughout two and a half weeks, and I took an old redwood deck that I had taken apart in Park City and turned it into Hoodah," he said.
Hoodah has proudly sat in the heart of Granary ever since, gaining a lot of notoriety around town.
So, this year, when the area needed another art installation for the Open Streets program, Franklin was on board.
"They reached out to me to see if I could do something small, and I said, 'How about I make something big?'”
Noticing a trend here?
And big it was, with Kosmo the Kosmocertops, a dinosaur species only found here in Utah.
Franklin noted that the materials comprising "Utah's own dinosaur" were even homegrown. The piece was created from "all sorts of repurposed steel elements that are from existing fabrication businesses from this neighborhood.”
The Kosmoceratops dinosaur lived around 76 million years ago, with specimens being discovered in Utah at Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument.
Franklin actually worked with researchers at the Natural History Museum, looking at real parts of the skull to get the proportions just right.
For Franklin, a woodworker turned giant art maker, this process has been like nothing he could have expected.
"You know, it's kind of vulnerable, putting big pieces of art out in the world. You know, how they are going to be received,” he said. "It lights me up in a way that furniture doesn't, when it's a community piece and the community gets to receive it and make a relationship with it.”
Speaking of community, Hoodah and Kosmo have become symbols of identity for the Granary neighborhood, a neighborhood that is changing.
"We all know that Salt Lake's changing, especially the Granary, which is changing quickly. I don't feel like I'm personally in control of the change, but I can help add to the character of what the change looks like," Franklin said
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Character is created by these two figures, who are adding their unique touch to the neighborhood.
"Apartments are going to go up, new businesses are going to come in. But maintaining that gritty, industrial vibe of the neighborhood feels really important. I can help show the story of what this neighborhood has been," Franklin said.
He even teased that this wouldn’t be his last addition to the area.
If you want to see more of Garth Franklin’s work you can visit his website: franklinwoodworking.com, or his Instagram page: @franklinwoodworking.
