Ponying up for nonprofit groups

Equine art effort will raise funds

By Hipolito R. Corella
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
 

Tucson is jumping on the arty animal chuck wagon.
By next year, up to 40 life-size polyurethane and fiberglass horses will be grazing along Tucson streets if the backers of the "Ponies del Pueblo" prevail.

The public art fund-raising project will borrow from cities such as Chicago, Santa Fe and Seattle, which have used cows, horses and pigs to decorate their streets.

The faux ponies will be used to help raise money for the city's nonprofit organizations, said Mary Anne Ingenthron, executive director of the Tucson-Pima Arts Council.

Corporate sponsors will pay $6,000 to sponsor a pony. The money will cover the cost of the horse and pay the artist. Finished horses will be auctioned in November 2003, with the proceeds going to the nonprofit groups chosen by sponsors.

The council is coordinating the selection and recruitment of regional artists and matching sponsors with nonprofit groups.

At the kickoff for the project Monday in the Tucson Museum of Art courtyard, U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe called the idea whimsical.

"God knows with everything going on in the world, we need a little whimsy in our lives," the Arizona Republican said.

The Community Food Bank's Lynn Perez-Hewitt, who is looking for a sponsor, recalled her trip to Chicago and termed the reaction people had to the cows there "magical."

"You'd go to a hotel and ask where you could get a cup of coffee, and they'd say, 'Go down the street and take a right at the Marilyn Monroe cow,' " she said.

No ponies attended the kickoff, except for a nearly life-size sketch on paper and a bronze sculpture of a rider and horse at one end of the courtyard.

The first of the ponies should arrive next month, with an unveiling expected in January. Initially, the ponies will be kept Downtown, and then dispersed across the city, Ingenthron said.

For more information, call the Tucson-Pima Arts Council at 624-0595 or visit the council's Web site at www.poniesdelpueblo.org.

* Contact reporter Hipolito R. Corella at 573-4243 or at corella@azstarnet.com.