A young and growing polystyrene foam company has seen a version of its product land in ArtPrize's coveted Top 10 and will soon see another version on the Big Screen. As it turns out, foam products are in demand across myriad industries and fill needs in places ranging from funeral parlors to construction sites.
According to excerpts from the story:
Ryan Van Dyke knows there's no business like show business — especially when Harbor Foam's product shows up on the big screen and on the front page of newspapers. A lot of people have already seen the Grandville company's product bigger than life, and probably many more will see it when the re-make of "Red Dawn" is released. They just won't recognize it.
Take “Nessie,” for example, the acclaimed sea serpent sculpture that made a startling appearance on the Grand River in downtown Grand Rapids during ArtPrize: "That's our foam," said Van Dyke, sales/new product development manager at the young company. Harbor Foam, which has about eight employees, expands tiny polystyrene pellets into large blocks to customer specifications. The foam is then cut and shaped for a variety of uses, ranging from construction insulation to packaging containers and inserts. The best-known brand of expanded polystyrene (EPS) is Styrofoam from Dow Chemical Co.
"A lot of sculptors and artists like to work with it," noted Van Dyke. That's why David Valdisseri called Harbor Foam a few months ago to order enough EPS to make “Nessie on the Grand,” an ArtPrize entry that may have been the most photographed work in the city-wide show.
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