More than a year and a half ago, Corrine Hunt and Omer Arbel met at a cafe.
As the two artists collaborating to design the medals of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the duo knew two things for certain. First, each individual medal — 615 for the Olympics and 399 for the Paralympics — should be a unique piece of art. Second, the medals had to capture the spirit and wild beauty of Canada, and British Columbia in particular.
“I remember we were walking the streets of Vancouver one night, talking about how we wanted to bring all of that together,” Hunt said during a telephone interview. “I think we did that. I hope so. When I first saw the medals, I was overwhelmed with emotion.”
“We wanted each piece to be completely unique,” Arbel added. “We felt that it was important that each athlete take home a piece that was different than every other athlete’s.”
The medals were unveiled to the public last week with the green- friendly news that some of the materials used to create the medals were recycled from end-of-life electronics headed for landfills.
To call the 2010 Olympic medals “unique” doesn’t do them justice. Instead of a traditional round and flat design, the medals have an undulating shape. The design evokes images of rolling waves, drifting snow and mountainous landscapes. The Olympic medals are circular in shape, while the Paralympics medals are a superellipse, a squared circle.
“We wanted the medals to affect people, not just with how they looked, but in a tactile way,” said Arbel, an industrial designer and architect who used his skills to create the undulating design. “We wanted to create an emotional response by how the medals felt to the touch.”
That’s also part of the reason each medal weighs between 500 to 576 grams, making them some of the heaviest medals in Olympic history.
Hunt is a renowned artist and a native of British Columbia. She is extremely proud of her Komoyue and Tlingit (First Nation) heritage, and that’s reflected in her work. The medals’ basic designs are based on her two large master artworks of an orca (for the Olympics) and a raven (Paralympics).
Hunt chose the orca, or killer whale, for its beauty, grace and strength, and also because it’s a sea creature that lives within a community.
“I think of the Olympics as a community, so the orca reflects not only the strength of the athletes but the strength of the Olympic movement itself,” she said.
Hunt chose the raven, as seen rising on totem poles, to honor her paraplegic uncle.
Each medal will include a signature element of the orca or raven artwork, such as the curve of a dorsal fin or perhaps the contours of the raven’s wing. A silk scarf printed with Hunt’s master artwork will be presented to each athlete along with their medal, enabling them to see how their medal fits with others to complete the whole design.
The Royal Canadian Mint is currently producing the medals at its headquarters in Ottawa. The mint began striking the medals in July and will finish next month.
Vancouver-based Teck Resources is supplying the metal. In its recycling effort, Teck shredded, separated and heated recovered metal from recycled TVs, computers and keyboards. Then the company combined the byproducts with raw materials.
“Our employees worldwide are honored to supply the metals for the medals that will be cherished by the world’s best winter athletes in 2010,” said Teck’s president and CEO, Don Lindsay.
Patrick Saunders: 303-954-1428 or psaunders@denverpost.com
Medal count
A by-the-numbers description of the medals of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games:
2: The number of designers — Corrine Hunt and Omer Arbel — who created the distinctive look of the 2010 medals.
2.05: Kilograms of gold Teck Resources provided for the gold medals.
6: All gold medals for the 2010 Winter Games are plated with 6 grams of gold.
6.8: Metric tons of circuit board material from end-of-life electronics diverted from landfills for the making of the medals.
30: Number of steps it took the Royal Canadian Mint to manufacture the medals.
34: Mint engineers, engravers, dye technicians, machinists and production experts who combined forces to create the medals.
95: The width of the Paralympic medals in millimeters.
100: The diameter of the Olympic medals in millimeters.
399: Number of Paralympic medals produced for the 2010 Winter Games.
500-576: Weight, in grams, for each individual medal.
615: Number of Olympic medals produced for the 2010 Winter Games.
Source: Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games
