New Goddess sculpture gets no respect

I guess it’s impossible for one person to understand the obsessions of others.

So I’m not troubled that I didn’t get my former co-worker’s thing for a long-departed flame. A goddess she was, at least to hear onetime News Tribune business columnist Dan Voelpel describe her. Statuesque even, with a proclivity for Roman helmets, holding the world in the palm of one hand and a spear in the other.

Not a woman to be messed with.

It was bad enough when he first heard about her from retail consultant Paula Rees. But when he sleuthed out the truth – that the Goddess of Commerce had been melted down, the scrap fees going toward a jug of whiskey for the men who did her in, he was like a man possessed.

Or obsessed.

It was such a shameful departure that Voelpel wondered if downtown’s decades-long decline might be blamed on a curse. Any city so confident in its prosperity that it would destroy a goddess so dedicated would surely face the punishment for hubris.

Tacoma doesn’t lack for goddesses. Former state Sen. Lorraine Wojahn so intimidated her once-condescending male colleagues that they christened her the Norse Goddess of Terror.

And of course there are the Dockyard Derby Dames.

But none is powerful enough to restore the City of Destiny to its, you know, destiny.

From Voelpel’s obsession came a campaign. Former art teacher and part-time sculptor Marilyn Mahoney (creator of the Salmon Beach mermaid) began work on a modern interpretation of the Goddess. Standing 7 feet tall, the figure, more maiden than Valkyrie, holds a platter with all of downtown’s icons represented. In her other hand is a containership.

Down her back is a stream of salmon swimming down to the base. Her earrings are cranes.

“She is so strong that in one hand she can hold the Glass Museum and the Tacoma Dome, St. Joseph Hospital, Old City Hall, the Bostwick Building, Waddell Building and a Pierce Transit bus,” Mahoney told the Tacoma Arts Commission.

“She is a very powerful lady.”

Renowned arts patron Babe Lehrer began doing what she does so well – finding the $67,000 to pay for it. After a planned site in front of the Carlton Center near Tollefson Plaza was taken off the list, Pierce Transit agreed to let it be placed in the park above its downtown transit center.

The Goddess was soon to be in her heaven and all would be right with our world.

Except maybe not.

By a 6-0 vote, the arts commission voted last month to reject the gift, at least for the site near the Theater on the Square. Lots of reasons were given. It took up space needed for the farmer’s market and theater district events. There was already too much public art in that block. They didn’t like the idea of donor names being included in the base. At one time Mahoney said the facial features reflected American Indian influences, so it should have been reviewed by the Puyallup Tribe.

But the real reason seems to be that they don’t like the sculpture. In a memo prepared for the City Council, economic development director Ryan Petty said the commission felt it was “a well-intentioned piece” lacking in “distinctive artistic merit or significant aesthetic quality.”

The commission also said Mahoney “has no reputation, exhibition record or market.”

Mahoney thinks the rejection of her gift reflects a bias against “figurative art,” depictions of real objects, often humans and animals, that represent what they actually look like.

“They don’t like figurative art. They don’t want any more Larry Andersons,” Mahoney said, referring to the bronze artist who created the “New Beginnings” sculpture outside Union Station and similar works. “What started out as such a positive thing has turned into one thing after another.”

Voelpel, now Puyallup’s economic development director, said that while he might have preferred something more similar to the original, he respects Mahoney’s prerogatives as an artist.

“Not everyone’s an artist,” he said. “But everyone’s an art critic.”

I don’t pretend to be an art critic. I’m not a big fan of the Willy Wonka statue in Proctor, but some people seem to like it, so what the heck. You mean that’s supposed to be Allen Mason, not Willy Wonka? See, don’t ask me about these things.

But the sculpture meant to break the curse over Tacoma’s economy has sparked quite a bit of debate among those who care about such things. The common thread seems to be that the symbolism is too vague, the figure too timid.

“I just feel if you’re going to tag it with ‘goddess’ it should be strong, beautiful, and doing something interesting,” wrote Intacoma on the blog Tacoma Urbanist. “She looks like she’s holding a bedpan and crying. I guess that’s the feeling of downtown right now.”

Said Erik: “If Tacoma is going to be able to stand up to the likes of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the Goddess needs more mojo!”

And on the NineInchNachos blog, Thorax O’Toole wrote: “I want a goddess of commerce with fire and badassitude oozing out of her every pore.”

The casting of the statue began this week at Bronze Works, and Mahoney and Lehrer are not giving up. They are talking to some other groups in town about placing the statute elsewhere, though it is unlikely to be accepted into the city’s collection.

“I’m very hopeful,” Mahoney said.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com

blog.thenewstribune.com/politics