“It was completely intimidating”, said Carolyn Palmer, whose new Lucy is to be unveiled today at Lucille Ball Memorial Park in the icon’s western NY hometown of Celoron.
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Celoron Mayor Scott Schrecengost and sculptor Carolyn Palmer revealed the statue in Lucille Ball Memorial Park on what would have been the actress’ 105th birthday. Palmer’s statue is replacing a previous statue, which was nicknamed “Scary Lucy” and frightened residents so much they petitioned to get it removed.
In its place is a new bronze statue – this time wrought by sculptor Carolyn Palmer, who won a competition to create it a year ago.
She worked on the new statue for nine months and studied Ball’s image in depth as it appeared in still photos, all of her movies and last but not least, all the episodes from her ever-popular sit-com from television’s Golden Age, I Love Lucy. “I had to do a little bit of exaggerating in certain areas to bring that out”, Palmer said.
“Sculpting Lucille Ball was such an honor”, Palmer tells PEOPLE.
The new statue was commissioned to replace another sculpture unveiled just seven years ago.
In this August 2012 photo, a bronze sculpture of Lucille Ball is displayed in Lucille Ball Memorial Park in the village of Celoron, N.Y. Celoron was Ball’s hometown and the new statue unveiling became part of the 2016 “Lucille Ball Comedy Festival”.
The Festival portion of the event starts Friday at 3 p.m. when food and craft vendors open and Dragon boat participants will practice in the lake starting at 4 p.m.
After a public outcry arose when sculptor Dave Poulin’s original Lucy statue was unveiled in 2009, Poulin actually offered to fix the sculpture at his own expense, acknowledging, “In retrospect, it should have never been cast in bronze and made public, and I take complete ownership of that poor decision”. A replacement campaign was launched to raise money for the newer, friendlier Lucy statue.
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Sculptor Carolyn D. Palmer prepares to unveil a new statue of Lucille Ball in Celoron, N.Y., on Saturday.
