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Locals call for hideous statue to go

Updated: Sculptor offers to fix a hideous statue of a TV star after an outcry in her hometown.

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Residents of Celoron, New York, are unhappy with this public statue of Lucille Ball (yes Lucille Ball), standing in the town of her birth.

And who can blame them?

Locals have complained that it’s “frightening” and looks nothing like her, and are now looking into fundraising options to fix it.

A Facebook page called “We Love Lucy! Get Rid of this Statue” suggested starting a GoFundMe page or a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to replace it.

“I think it looks like a monster. That is just my opinion,” the founder said. “When you see it at night, it is frightening.”

A Buffalo News columnist said, “No one here much likes the statue, and one look tells you why. It looks more like an extra from The Walking Dead than arguably the most famous comic actress of all time.”

Celoron mayor Scott Schrecengost told the local Post-Journal, “Over the past couple of years, I’ve reached out to Dave Pouli and have had at least four conversations with him about redoing the statue. He finally came back and said he wanted $8,000 to $10,000 to do it. I’ve also reached out to several other sculptors in the region, and some said they would do it, but we’re still looking at about $5,000. We’d like to work with the original sculptor and wish he would stand behind his work enough to step up and fix it for free.”

Updated: In a letter to The Hollywood Reporter, artist Dave Poulin offers to fix the statue for free.

“I take full responsibility for ‘Scary Lucy,’ though by no means was that my intent or did I wish to disparage in any way the memories of the iconic Lucy image,” he writes.

“From the day of its installation, I have shared my disappointment in the final outcome and have always believed it to be by far my most unsettling sculpture, not befitting of Lucy’s beauty or my ability as a sculptor. Yes, in retrospect, it should have never been cast in bronze and made public, and I take complete ownership of that poor decision.”

Source: Hollywood Reporter, CNN

13 Responses

  1. This should be featured in a tv advert with the tagline “should have gone to specsavers”….sorry for the advert etc….but…y’know

    1. This is a reference to an episode ‘Lucy Does a TV Commercial’ where she tastes
      a fictitious health tonic called
      Vitameatavegamin and gets drunk.

  2. Surely the Mayor or whoever would have had a final say as to whether or not it lived up to the original brief, and from looking at it I would say that it has not lived up to the original brief and the original artist or sculptor should have got it right in the first place, if not he should fix it for free.

  3. It has been a tourist draw since 2009 for Celoron, the comedian’s birthplace, attracting visitors who pose with the statue for pictures.

    1. It’s like that terrible ‘restoration’ of a fresco in Spain a few years ago. It was so hilariously bad that thousands visited and the church made a mint in donations. They should keep it – it works better as a tourist attraction than a tasteful likeness of Lucy ever will.

  4. I see you’ve used the quote as it’s given on other websites, but I thought I’d just point out the sculptor’s name is Poulin, not Pouli.

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