Rita and Dean have not been bored in their retirement. They have been busy building their estimated 40-foot-tall sheet metal dragon\u00a0and her baby\u00a0\u2014 among many other creative pursuits.<\/p>\n
The increasingly popular\u00a0dragon, which is visible to boaters navigating the Trent-Severn Waterway, is not their only retirement project.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Robinsons also have many unique antiquing finds and tinkering projects in their three-car garage, originally used to store candy for the shop.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had 800 cases of candy in here,\u201d recalled\u00a0Rita. \u201cJust rows and rows. It was all business. It was all candy and business.\u201d<\/p>\n
They had steel racks filled with soda pop and cases of candy as high as Dean\u2019s chest. Every morning, they would drive\u00a0the candy they needed from their garage to the shop in their own cars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now that they have retired, the space is filled with sweet goods of a different kind: creative projects and antiquing finds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dean says\u00a0he and his wife have very different tastes when it comes to antiquing. He looks for \u201cgarage stuff,\u201d as he calls it: boat motors, old gas pumps, car parts, old snowmobiles\u2014 anything technical that he can tinker with.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Rita\u2019s interest lies in artistic pieces that can inspire her creativity. Her finds line the upstairs room of their garage, right above Dean\u2019s workspace.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI went, \u2018OK, this is the idea I have in my head. I want to do a 3D painting that you can walk into.\u2019 So, the upstairs is just a fantasy, just a lot of fun,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She worked on her walk-through painting throughout the COVID-19 lockdown. Rita says\u00a0the room worked as an outlet for her, something she could work on for a few hours here and there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"2025-08-11-robinsons-art-projectfigu-figure-17\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/2025-08-11-robinsons-art-projectfigu-figure-17.jpg;w=960.jpeg\"\/)
\nRita and Dean Robinson’s most impressive creation can be seen from the Trent-Severn Waterway. \u201cIt looks like a huge gold brooch when you’re out on the water,\u201d Rita says with pride. Abigail Noble for OrilliaMatters
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took time to do it piece by piece, but it was one of those things you could kind of think of and just work at, come up here and play with it,\u201d she says. \u201cIt kind of evolved with whatever we found.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple\u2019s retirement has enabled them to explore their creative ideas more freely, but it was not an easy decision to walk away from the business.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started saying goodbye to people, and we had kids coming and grabbing us, and hugging us, crying. It was months and months of people making a special trip just to say goodbye, because they’d seen us for 23 years,\u201d says Rita. \u201cIt was really weird. It’s like being at your wake, but you’re still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
They say their 23-year stint at the store brought them close to their community, which brought them a lot of joy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their biggest project since retiring from the Candy Shoppe is, without a doubt, the giant steel dragon wrapped around a tree in their riverfront backyard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe may not have the biggest house on the river, but we definitely have the biggest lawn ornament,\u201d Rita says. \u201cI’m so pleased with how it turned out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The dragon\u2019s head alone is five-and-a-half feet long.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a process,\u201d Rita says. \u201cI didn’t realize how big it looked, but when you’re on the water and you’re sitting and looking up, it looks like the thing is twice the size of my house.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dragon\u2019s body wraps itself around their half-cut tree. It is made up of a series of rings, held together on a frame and covered in scales made of sheet metal. Dean reinforced the tree with metal rods to make sure it could withstand the dragon\u2019s weight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was done section by section,\u201d Rita says. \u201cWhen we actually got into doing all the scales and stuff, that was literally draw and cut, draw and cut, on sheet metal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dragon\u2019s details called for some expert creativity from Rita.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The dragon’s eyes were made with car reflectors set into metal bowls. The detailing on her wings comes from cut up cookie trays. Her nose is a potato masher. The sun detail at her jaw covers a hinge that lets her mouth open in the wind;\u00a0Rita bought it from a dollar store.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The dragon\u2019s baby was born last spring. Rita says Dean began building the framework for the baby\u2019s egg after some serious convincing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The baby uses most of the same parts as its mother, down to the dollar store sun ornament. Aside from size, key difference between the two is the bright shiny metal of the smaller dragon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spray painted the baby with lacquer, so it won’t rust. So, it looked like a newborn,\u201d says Rita.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She already has more plans for projects to fill their yard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m bugging him with what I want him to do next. I want him to do a giant five-foot hummingbird,\u201d she says. \u201cHe said no to the Ogopogo coming in and out of our lawn.\u201d<\/p>\n
With inspiration coming from all around them, Rita and Dean\u2019s artistic and engineering teamwork will surely continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Robinsons have opened up an entirely new chapter of life \u2014 one filled with fantastical art projects…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[46894,76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-77002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-artsculptureretirementrita-robinsonthe-candy-shoppedean-robinson","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}