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From The Observer News
(www.observernews.net) Top Stories n By MELODY JAMESON
But, time and the elements took their toll on the figure sculpted in mid-stride by the native Hillsborough artist who once served as dean of the fine arts college at the University of South Florida. His shine was gone – literally. Discoloration was noticeable. Enter the Citizens for the Betterment of SCC, residents of the retirement center who value beauty and attractiveness in all its myriad forms. Today the eight-foot statue on its brick base just east of Hillsborough Fire Station No. 28 is undergoing refurbishing by specialists from the foundry which cast the bronze. “The Fire Fighter,” a young boy by his side, is the work of painter and sculptor Harrison Covington. Born in Plant City, Covington attended schools there before leaving for World War II, training as a fighter pilot and ultimately flying missions in the Pacific theater. The experience, he told The Observer this week, left him with profound appreciation for men and women who perform courageously on a daily basis with little public recognition of their efforts. Unknown at the time, that developing drive to honor them would inform his forthcoming work as an artist many times over. Covington survived the war, returned to enter the University of Florida in Gainesville, earned a Masters in Fine Art, and commenced a teaching career that would take him eventually to the new campus of the University of South Florida, springing up on a sandy East Fowler Avenue site far outside the City of Tampa. Ultimately, he would become dean of its College of Fine Arts. As much as he enjoyed teaching, though, Covington “always knew I was going to be an artist.” Of course, he also established a studio in which to pursue his own work as a painter and, in time, as a sculptor. In fact, his talent in this latter medium would bring him several notable commissions. He would be asked, for example, to do a pilot figure for Tampa International Airport. The result is his “Barnstormer,” recognizing the sometimes desperate dangers faced by early commercial flyers, many of them discharged WW I pilots. The nine-foot-high “Barnstormer” sees off and welcomes visitors to Airside C, Southwest’s Tampa home. And, then, there’s Covington’s Shriner, complete with fez, carrying an ill child to the cutting edge medical care offered by Shriners’ Hospitals. The artist’s original bronze reposes in front of the Shiners’ International Tampa headquarters and some 100 fiberglass replicas reside at Shriners’ facilities across the continent, including Canada and Mexico, Covington said. The teacher and dean was retired from the university, had put aside the paint palette in favor of sculpting tools and was ready when the $50,000 commission by Hillsborough County came along for a piece of public art involving a heroic figure. “It was something I really wanted to do,” an homage he really wanted to pay, the artist noted this week. And so he set to work, first producing a model in clay about two feet high as a presentation piece to demonstrate his concept for the finished sculpture. They executed the agreement in December, 2004. Covington then sculpted the full eight-foot clay figure of the authentically-garbed fire fighter, his helmet in one hand, his other sheltering a child under his fireman’s jacket, the youngster looking up to the man with the stature and character to be a role model. “They’re role models for all of us,” he observed. The young boy was modeled by his grandson and namesake, Harrison Covington, nine years old at the time. But, the fire fighter is solely a figure manufactured in his imagination, the artist said, a composite inspired by several men, flyers he knew during the war and courageous risk takers seen later in life. His objective, he added, was to honor those everyday heroes who may, at any time, risk their lives in order to save others, their animals and their property from destruction by fire. The finished clay sculpture was transported to a Sarasota foundry, BronzeArt, where a plaster mold was made and from that mold, the actual bronze casting, Covington explained. The bronze, which the artist noted “will last a thousand years,” was set on its bricked pedestal facing S.R. 674 and dedicated in September, 2005. And why there? Although Bill Iverson, project manager in the county’s public art section, said he does not know the answer to that question, Covington offered a related anecdote. As he finished the sculpture, he said, he wanted to give the fire fighter a surname. He chose ”Langford,” honoring his wife’s family, and inscribed it on the back of the coat. But, coincidentally, among the assigned fire fighters in Station 28 at the time was a Langford, the artist said, adding when the station crew inspected the statue there was some good-natured bantering about “why him?” Retirees Ewing Smith and Norm Tock, however, are more concerned about the “what for” than the “how come” when the topic is “their Fire Fighter.” As members of the volunteer citizens group dedicated to keeping up appearances in and around the retirement center, they noticed the statue’s decline about 18 months ago and opened communications with Iverson’s office. Through a series of emails and telephone contacts, they encouraged inspection of the bronze for evaluation of its condition and needed conservation methods. Eventually, Iverson was able to engage the bronze conservators in Sarasota to begin the process of cleansing the bronze patina, applying a sort of protective lacquer and then finishing the conservation effort with a pouring of warm wax to return “ Fire Fighter’s” shine. Such work is hampered by high humidity and rain showers, Iverson said this week, and it has proceeded slowly because of weather conditions. With arrival of the drier, cooler fall months, the project should be completed before year’s end, Iverson added. “We’re thrilled the Sun City Center folks like the piece,” Iverson asserted, adding that South County’s “Fire Fighter” is “one of our more successful (public art) pieces” in all of Hillsborough. It also may have company in the foreseeable future, the project manager noted. Emphasizing he did not yet have details, Iverson said that placing indoor and outside public art pieces at the SouthShore Regional Library, the county’s newest and largest regional facility of that type on 19th Street, and at the SouthShore Regional Services Center on 30th Avenue, now is under consideration. © 2009 Melody Jameson © Copyright 2008 by The Observer News Publications and M&M Printing |
