Lupe
 

Built in just five months, Lupe is a 10,000-lb. steel mammoth along the Guadalupe River Trail near downtown San Jose, Calif. The sculpture marks the site where, in 2005, a man walking his dog along the Guadalupe River discovered tusks and skeletal fragments belonging to a juvenile mammoth. Artists FREYA BARDELL and BRIAN HOWE of Los Angeles-based Greenmeme Studio designed the 12.5 ft.-tall Lupe, made from layers of 1.5 in. schedule 40 cold rolled steel pipe, which is welded to an internal steel frame. With the help of Paramount Roll & Forming Inc. of Bellflower, Calif., Greenmeme bent pipe sections and welded them together. A hot-dip galvanized coating gives Lupe her silvery luster.