Champaign's Mayor got a fountain several months ago.
Urbana's Mayor is now getting a sculpture:
Prussing said she suggested that the city would be willing to install custom brick sidewalks, with three different colors of brick that follow Mooney's design plan, on the sidewalks surrounding the park. That will cost about $70,000 and will come from a city tax increment financing fund.
"I said, 'Let's do this right,'" Prussing said. "This guy's been commissioned to do this, let's get it done."
The brick sidewalks should be completed by this summer, said city Arborist Michael Brunk.
An Art in the Park Committee raised nearly $150,000 privately several years ago to help pay for the sculpture.
Will the suculpture be nicknamed the "Bozo" ?
Urbana remains decades behind Champaign. This bozo project has taken a decade.
Hey dont poke fun at our sculptures in Urbana.
Look at our wonderful works of art.
We've got a limestone bear holding a pineapple on East Windsor,
and multicolored fecal droppings on sticks at Meadowbrook on south Race.
Granolaville has some great art. Dont be making fun of it or be
suggesting it is ridiculous.
Is it a sculpture of Bozo?
John David Mooney is a local Champaign person, now living elsewhere, and is internationally reknown as an artist. He has no political ties one way or another. And he's a nice guy, with family still here.
On February 13th, 2008 at 12:12 PM, Champaign Dweller said:
Is it a sculpture of Bozo?
I have no idea of what the sculpture is, But I know what it should be! How about a rendering of a bottomless pit with Mayor Prussing and RFK Jr. throwning bags of taxpayers money down it!!!!
The sculpture is a lightning rod, not only for public opinion but SRSLY.
(It's a big metal tree, abstracted.)
ewjohnson says: "Hey dont poke fun at our sculptures in Urbana."
There are some nice ones out there. One of my favorite sculptures is in Meadowbrook Park, it's two big red metal hammers facing head to head, with human-like bodies so it looks like two identical arguing girls, hands on hips and the claw parts of the hammers sort of like pigtails flying out behind.
So they're bent at the waist, hands on hips, with the flat hammer faces right up in each other's faces, close, you can almost hear the "Did not!" Did too!"... I've long thought it reminds me of the Internet :)
it's two big red metal hammers facing head to head, with human-like bodies so it looks like two identical arguing girls,
hands on hips and the claw parts of the hammers sort of like pigtails flying out behind.
I like that one too, but it always reminded me of Pink Floyd for some reason.
Hey, this new sculpture will look real nice just across the street from the METAL FENCE POST SCULPTURE at the FEDERAL COURTHOUSE. You remember the story of the oh, so beautifull metal fence? $30,000....looks like something they should drop off at MERVIS RECYCLING? AH URBANA.....you gotta love these people.
Well, there's always that bundle of logs (or former telephone pole segments? You make the call) nailed together at the Mini Park II in Champaign across from Osco, if you're more into the wooden aesthetic (or you need extra firewood).
I think the metal tree also has a sibling metal blade of grass in the courtyard of an apartment in Champaign on University and... fifth? It's the one that was hit by a semi truck a few years ago.
And then... the metal thing out in front of the Grainger Library. That one though is interesting in that it has a sibling piece (same artist) in Sorrento Valley, installed in an office park that's visible from the 5/805 merge (or at least it used to be, I have no idea if new construction blocks the view). Anyway, that one is similar elliptical sections, but it's painted bright red rather than rusty, and it's basically two bundles of ellipses with a large rod emerging out at a 40 degree angle. There are actually two rods but from the highway, well...
It's officially called "the stargazer" but everyone in the area knew it as "the big red penis," in the sense of "yeah, take the exit after you see the big red penis..."
I do sort of like the ellipses, though. The painted red looks better than the rusted thing, I think.
<i>the metal thing out in front of the Grainger Library</i>
The year they installed that thing, some student club decorated it with a huge pencil and a huge paperclip and a sign saying "world's largest desk organizer" or something like that. That has to be hands down the ugliest piece of outdoor "art" in the county.
This one?
http://uiphotos.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/viewimg?ID=49020