Last week, people walking in downtown Saratoga would have likely seen a rainbow trout leaping in main street right outside the Saratoga Sun office.
The trout, constructed by local artist Jerry Wood, was part of the Sun’s entry into this year’s Hay Bale Sculpture contest. Over the past few years, Saratoga—and the Platte Valley—has brought in more and more public art for the betterment of our communities.
Murals are visible behind Platte Valley Martial Arts, on the side of Sweet Marie’s Mercantile and the side of The Sage Motel. A sculpture in honor of the late Staff Sergeant Tyler Pickett currently sits outside the Platte Valley Community Center with plans for it to move to Never Forget Park. In Encampment, a popular cartoon by the late artist Jerry Palen is painted through a paint-by-number process by members of the community at Harmony Park.
A major factor in the Valley’s acceptance of public art is the Platte Valley Arts Council’s annual Hay Bale Sculpture contest. This fun event takes place each October and challenges participants to get creative using hay bales of different sizes. They can add anything they want to bring the sculpture to life, so to speak, as long as it remains obvious that it is using one or several hay bales.
We were quite proud of our trout, which was set up to look like it was being caught on a fishing pole using a copy of the Saratoga Sun. Apparently, someone else liked our trout because Sunday afternoon we were shocked to find it had gone missing. They had to really work at getting the wooden fish as it sat on a metal pole which was sunk into two hay bales and it wasn’t exactly lightweight.
To be clear, we don’t know who would have taken our rainbow trout. The theft of the fish happens to coincide with the theft of a turkey crossing sign in Riverside, though we have no idea if the two are connected. We would hope it’s not a local who stole our trout. If it was a tourist, well there are plenty of other places to get a memento of your time in Saratoga besides destroying someone's hard work. If it was one of the seasonal workers who come to the Valley during the summer to work for one of the many resorts in our area, we hope that their conscience gets the better of them before they leave the place they called home for several months.
The ramifications of this theft go beyond just us being heartbroken that someone would destroy our hard work.
This was a record-breaking year for the Platte Valley Arts Council for their contest with a total of 14 entries. While we’re excited to see that many businesses get involved to celebrate public art, we can’t help but think that an incident like this would cause many of them to second guess entering next year. Showing pride in your community and supporting public art shouldn’t result in damaged property.
Further, this could cause people to second-guess investing in more permanent public art in the future which would be a detriment to our communities. According to the Americans for the Arts, “having a particular community identity, especially in terms of what our towns look like, is becoming even more important in a world where everyplace tends to look like everyplace else. Places with strong public art expressions break the trend of blandness and sameness, and give communities a stronger sense of place and identity.”
That strong sense of place and identity through our public art makes the Valley even more appealing for people to visit or eventually become a resident and help our communities grow. That growth is what keeps our communities alive and helps the largest employment sector in our Valley.
We imagine that whoever took the trout didn’t think about all these ramifications. Chances are, there wasn’t much thought involved beyond this person—or group of people—deciding they wanted to take something that wasn’t theirs.
We ask that whoever took our trout return it to the Saratoga Sun. No questions asked.
Reader Comments(0)