Statues around town will celebrate JMU’s 100 years
Seven years after 300 life-size exhibition cows took over Chicago in the name of art, JMU and Harrisonburg are putting their own spin on the project. In celebration of the university’s 100th anniversary, the Duke Dog will make similar appearances in a variety of colors and designs around the area.
Although no one is exactly sure how many of these two-foot statues will pop up around Harrisonburg, no two will look exactly alike.
“On ours we’re going to have a montage of photographs from the Institution’s history done in different shades and different colors,” explains Fred Hilton, director of the Centennial Celebration.
The idea for the “Put Up Your Dukes” project came from Paul Campbell, assistant director of alumni relations, and Kate Monger, director of the Madison Art Collection. Campbell first got the idea when he came across Virginia Tech’s “Gobble de Art” project on the university’s Web site. The Blacksburg Partnership and Virginia Tech financed 75 painted fiberglass Hokie Birds that can be found throughout the campus and surrounding community.
The Duke Dog statues will be exact replicas of the original statue that sits in front of the Plecker Center outside Bridgeforth Stadium. Lee Leuning, the sculptor of the original statue, is making the scaled-down version out of lightweight resin.
“I’m always worried about outdoor things disappearing, as a number of Virginia Tech’s Hokie birds have,” Hilton says. “So we decided a smaller one would be less costly and get more people involved in it.”