AMY STOCKLEIN
Savannah Guthrie puts finishing touches on her Bucky sculpture, one of 85 that will be displayed in Madison this summer.
Since January, Savannah Guthrie and her husband, Scott, have been eating dinner on the floor of their one-bedroom apartment on West Gilman Street.
The couple have had to make room for an unusual guest — a 6-foot-tall, 160-pound Bucky Badger fiberglass statue, which is taking up their dining area.
Their temporary roommate has not gone unnoticed by neighbors. “The house next door throws parties out on their roof and people look through our window and say ‘what on earth?’” Savannah Guthrie says.
A graphic designer at UW-Madison’s Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, Savannah Guthrie was selected to be one of 64 artists chosen to design a Bucky Badger for the upcoming “Bucky on Parade,” a public art display launching May 7 and running through Sept. 12.
This April afternoon Guthrie is putting the final touches on the fiberglass statue of UW-Madison’s lovable mascot. Tomorrow the Guthries will rent a truck to move the statue to Madison College where he will receive a protective coating and be stored until a private
AMY STOCKLEIN
unveiling party at the UW Field House on April 30.
Rob Gard, communications director for the Greater Madison Convention and Visitors Bureau, one of the event’s sponsors, says the event is a year in the making. The primary goal is to have a fun and interactive event for the community. But Bucky on Parade will also benefit Garding Against Cancer, an organization that raises money for cancer research.
The art show will feature 85 Bucky statues at locations around the Madison area. One statue, “Golden Bucky,” will be moved around during the show. About 30 of the statues will be auctioned off at a finale party on Sept. 29.
While Bucky on Parade riffs on the 2006 Cow Parade, which featured 101 decorated fiberglass cows around Madison, Gard says Bucky on Parade is unusual for another reason.
“This is the first time, that anyone is aware of, that the UW has opened up interpretation of Bucky,” Gard says. And interpret Bucky they did. One artist is covering Bucky with chameleons and peacock feathers. Not all of the submissions were approved — “Bikini Bucky didn’t fly,” Gard says.
But Gard says of Guthrie’s design: “We’re thrilled with it.”
Guthrie attended college in Kentucky and has only lived in Madison since August. But she quickly caught the Badger spirit after attending a football game. “The whole city was red and I had never seen anything like that before,” Guthrie says. “I heard the song ‘If You Want to Be a Badger’ and was like ‘I can be one too!’ Bucky is very accepting.”
Her proposal to cover Bucky with signatures was intended to showcase the community. “I thought it would be cool to involve a ton of people,” Guthrie says. “All of the signatures are different shapes and sizes and without any of them the statue — like our community — wouldn’t work.”
“Signature Bucky” needed more community involvement than Guthrie expected. She thought about 1,500 signatures would be enough to cover the statue. When she realized she needed three times that number, panic set in.
“I took blank slips of paper with me literally everywhere I went,” she says. She spent most of one day wandering Memorial Union and Union South soliciting autographs. “I collected 500 signatures that day,” Guthrie says.
After the private viewing event for artists and sponsors at the Field House on April 30, the Bucky statues will be transported to locations around the city on May 6, where they will be covered until a simultaneous unveiling celebration the next morning. Despite a few challenges, Guthrie is pleased with how Signature Bucky, her first public art piece, turned out. “I’ll be so excited to see the city’s response to him this summer,” she says.
Autographs on Signature Bucky: 4,511
Written on the top of the head of “Signature Bucky”: “Congrats you have found the top of Bucky’s head.”
Artist submissions for project: 180
Submissions received on deadline for proposals: 150+
Bucky statue manufacturer: FAST Corporation in Sparta, which also made the 145-foot long musky at the Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward.
People with autographs on “Signature Bucky”: UW Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank, golfer Andy North, UW Athletic Director Barry Alvarez, men’s basketball Coach Greg Gard, former men’s basketball coach Bo Ryan. And a bunch of first graders.
Location “Signature Bucky” will be displayed: Outside Bel Air Cantina, 111 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Editor's note: This article originally gave the incorrect location that "Signature Bucky" will be displayed. It will be outside Bel Air Cantina, 111 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
