It is said that every artist hears a voice, inspiring the act of creation.

The voice that Fayetteville resident John Parker heard may have whispered

something like, "If you build it, they will shower. And laugh."

Parker is the creator of what may be the very first "Shark Shower," a

shower built inside of a faux shark made of metal, foam, Plexiglas and spray-on

bed liner that will hang upside-down outside of his lake house on Lake Sinclair.

He got the idea for the shower when thinking of solutions to large numbers

of guests at the lake house waiting to get their turn in the house's

one shower after a day at the lake.

Parker, who has created a number of maritime-themed pieces for the house

out of exotic woods, including a full-size mermaid, was inspired to create

the Shark Shower by his niece, Karen Scarbrough, a fan of sharks. He has

even named the shark K-Bite as a sort of tribute to her.

Parker began the process by drawing a picture of the shark on a transparency

and then projecting it on a wall to get the dimensions correct. To be 36

inches across so that people could fit inside the shark comfortably to take

a shower, the shark would have to be close to 15 feet tall. The design was

then drawn on Masonite and then began what Parker considered to be the toughest

part of the process, welding.

It was the most difficult aspect for Parker because he had never welded

before and had to teach himself to weld.

"I went through a lot of grinding wheels and a lot of metal in the

process," he said.

After the frame was established, Parker covered it in over 400 square feet

of fiberglass cloth. The construction also called for an estimated 17 gallons

of resin and eight gallons of speed-liner, which is typically used for bed-liners

for pick-up trucks.

Parker did most of the work on K-Bite on the weekends and figures he put

in close to 200 hours of work on the project. He got some help from his wife,

Julie, and his sons Michael and Joe.

"There were times when I thought the project was too big to do and

I wasn't pleased with how it looked initially," said Parker as

he recounted the early struggles with his creation. "Once we got the

frame and the screen up though, it really took shape and started to look

good. When we put the teeth in, it started to look really good."

Parker also gives a lot of praise to the staff at Brian's Paint and

Body Shop on Ga. Highway 54, who understood his vision for K-Bite and did

what Parker considers a "terrific job" with the painting of K-Bite.

The eyes on the shark came from Duke's Taxidermy and were custom-made.

Though the completion of the project is its own reward, Parker also took

pleasure in some of the looks he got as he was transporting K-Bite on a trailer

from Brian's Paint and Body Shop