Students who frequent the Gallery at Snyder-Phillips might have noticed scaffolding this week surrounding the large sculpture just outside the dining hall's windows.
The sculpture, which is called the "Funambulist," was receiving a fresh coat of red and black paint.
The statue’s name comes from the Latin word funambulus, which means tightrope walker, campus planner Steve Troost said.
“(We’re) just putting a fresh coat of paint on it, livening it up,” Gerry Stowell, one of the workers painting the sculpture said.
Troost said the statue was created by sculptor John Van Alstine and was installed in 2010.
The sculpture and its installation cost $150,000.
Troost also said Van Alstine connected the sculpture to the lives of students by saying how navigating through college requires students to maintain a balancing act, like a tightrope walker.
“I think this shows just how art can be used to accent a place,” Troost said. “It’s one of my favorites, it’s a really cool piece.”
Architectural conservator Ron Koenig, whose company was contracted to repaint the sculpture, said that when the Funambulist was first installed, few people favored it.
“There was a lot of controversy when the sculpture went in because people felt like it was taking away their green space,” he said.
Troost noted that people vandalized the statue out of their intense opposition to it.
“But people have come to sort of embrace it, I think, people in the residential college in particular,” he said.
Though the graffiti was cleaned off four years ago, it left some unevenness. This, combined with a naturally uneven finish due to ultraviolet sunlight, inspired Koenig and his workers to use a lacquer-based product now.
“This is specifically formulated for sculptures that are outside, it’s even used on fountains, so it lasts really, really well,” Koenig said, noting that the paint should have a lifespan of anywhere from 10 to 25 years.
Koenig, who is also working on the sculpture, worked on the paint job for a little over a week. On Thursday afternoon, he said he and his fellow workers are in a bit of a hurry for a couple reasons.
“One is the game on Saturday, because we’re gonna have people from out of town that are gonna be here and we have to make sure the scaffolding is down and everything is cleaned up so that it looks good for the game,” he said.
Koenig said the scaffolding needed to be taken down out of fear of people trying to climb up it and vandalize the statue.
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
