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Walking by The Billfish Foundation booth in the Big Game Room, I found my eyes going straight to the marlin on the wall of the booth. But this wasn’t another mini-marlin release mount. Rather, this was, well....  hell, look at the photo of it because I don’t have space for the thousand words that picture is worth. Hard to describe, the sculpture is on its own merits a cool piece of art.

It gets cooler — when you realize that it’s made up entirely of sunglasses! (Disclaimer: I’d seen this before in ads, but had thought it was digitally painted. Now I realize those of us who have seen those ads were looking at a photo of an actual sculpture.) Costa had the marlin pieced together from a zillion (or maybe a few less than that) actual sunglass lenses, hinges, frame arms, nose pads, side shields and retainer cord segments.

For years a TBF sponsoring partner, Costa donated the piece to the foundation; it will be auctioned off at the 23rd Annual TBF Tag & Release Awards Ceremony in February, 2013.

TBF President Ellen Peel calls it “a priceless work of art.”

I suspect anyone passing by TBF booth in Miami won’t fail to notice it.