The Effigy Tree has come home to Hudson Park. The installation of a bronze casting of the discussions involving Whitehorse, neighborhood partisans and the Madison Arts Commission led to the tree's removal for yet another restoration at the artist's studio, and a campaign to raise funds for the sculpture's casting in bronze.
Executed by Milwaukee's Vanguard Sculpture Services, the bronze casting was installed Thursday morning. Guided into place by a crew from Ideal Crane, it settled onto a new pedestal of Texas red granite architectural stone, as shown in this video.
If the Effigy Tree has become a neighborhood centerpiece, it is also now a Madison landmark. This is borne out by the breadth and depth of support for the Whitehorse sculpture's restoration and casting. Among those donating money and services to the project and its maintenance endowment: Ho-Chunk Nation, the Whitehorse family, Madison Arts Commission, Madison Community Foundation, the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission (with additional funds from the Overture Foundation and Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation), Goodman Community Center, Ken Saiki Design (who is contributing landscape services to the project), Robert Kalhagen of Ideal Crane, Jim Durham of Quarra Stone, the Food Fight Restaurant Group, Jenifer Street Market, Ald. Marsha Rummel, former state archeologist Robert Birmingham, architect Ed Linville, Joe Krupp of Krupp General Contractors, and Isthmus publisher and associate publisher Vince O'Hern and Linda Baldwin, who hosted a celebratory fund-raiser for the maintenance endowment fund Thursday at their home across the street from the sculpture.
Formal dedication festivities are being planned for Saturday, September 12, with a rain date of September 13.
