Artist Carolyn Palmer working on the new statue. Since 2009, a terrifying bronze monument to the television actress and producer, which came to be known as “Scary Lucy”, has presided over the town’s Lucille Ball Memorial Park.
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Finally, on Saturday, Celoron will unveil a new statue of Ball at Lucille Ball Memorial Park to replace the old “ugly” one, after complaints from residents went viral.
Ms Palmer’s statue is to be unveiled on Saturday in Lucille Ball Memorial Park in the western NY village of Celoron.
It’s hard to imagine she could do any worse than Dave Poulin, whose 2009 version was so thoroughly panned for looking absolutely nothing like the comic actress that fans launched a Facebook campaign previous year with the name, “We Love Lucy! Get Rid of the Statue”, told Yahoo that he didn’t want to bad-mouth Poulin, whose other work, he notes, is quite good.
Judging by the early response to the new Lucille Ball statue, Palmer shouldn’t have to worry about a harsh reception. In photographs, the new Lucy can look a touch murdery from certain angles owing mostly to the wideness of her eyes.
Which, as Schrecengost knows, might not sit well with the Scary Lucy foes.
The statue will be unveiled Saturday at noon in the park where Lucy played as a child.
The end result is a sculpture that stands a total of 6-feet tall. She devised Lucy’s confident pose by walking back and forth in front of her bathroom mirror and hiring a series of models to get the look just right.
Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy, performing a scene no one should cast in bronze.
Palmer has a history of sculpting famous daces and her work includes Pope Francis, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Orville and Wilbur Wright and Thomas Jefferson.
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Palmer thanked the “salt-of-the-earth” people of Celeron. I had to do a little bit of exaggerating in certain areas to bring that out…”I just hope that all the Lucy fans are pleased and that Lucille Ball herself would have enjoyed this image of her”. “I really think the polka dots made her more interesting and I like them a lot”, said Palmer.
