Photo by Jeff Watts |
New eagle carving soaring over campus BY MIKE UNGER An eagle in flight is magnificent to behold. The proud birds with majestic wingspans soar gracefully through the air, captivating the attention of those on the ground lucky enough to witness the spectacle. AU’s newest eagle is only slightly less impressive than the real thing. A large wood carving of an eagle, standing more than six feet tall, was completed this summer by Pennsylvania-based artist Rick Boni. Working in the parking lot behind Kay Spiritual Life Center over the course of two sweltering days using an arsenal of more than 10 chainsaws, Boni fashioned the trunk of an old oak tree into a sculpture of AU’s mascot. His craftsmanship was splendid, to say the least.
Photo by Jeff Watts |
“I’m very pleased with it,” said Stephanie DeStefano, grounds operations coordinator. “I think it’s great.” Boni, whose studio is located in Ridgway, a small town in the Allegheny Mountains, has been making art by cutting wood with chainsaws for 17 years, but never before had he worked with such a wide base of oak. The stump, from a tree that used to stand on the quad in front of the Battelle-Tompkins Building, was roughly four by eight feet. “You can usually just let the saw cut through the wood, but here you have to be pushing on it the whole time,” Boni said while sipping a cool Dr. Pepper in the searing heat. The chainsaws he uses weigh anywhere from 8 to 20 pounds. The eagle is displayed on the quad in front of Bender Library. It eventually will be moved to Woods-Brown Amphitheater, which also features several benches made from the old oak tree. Officials cut down most of the tree last September after a branch fell, leaving only the stump standing through the winter until it too was removed. It was the campus beautification team that first broached the idea of hiring an artist to carve it into an eagle, DeStefano said. “It was such a beautiful piece of wood,” she said. |
