What will the New Year Bring?

Happy 2012. It looks as though a couple of folks have stopped by to see the latest on the Bear Totem Project. The most recent news is that the new VP of Alumni Affairs, Vicki Gorrell, has responded to Lynn Karowsky's eloquent letter asking for the Alumni Office to move forward with my offer to install my "ReInCairnation of Totem Teddy" on the campus with some issue with planning. The term "ReInCairnation" was Lynn's idea. I like it.

As you may remember with my Ghost Memory Totem that came down in 2008, my work is ephemeral in nature and, as far as I'm concerned shall remain ephemeral. We are, after all, all of us... just passing through. As the idea currently stands, it will be a cairn of about 520 2 x 6 x 1.5 wooden blocks stacked in tiers of five blocks each that will rise thirteen feet high. Ideally, the sculpture will be placed on the same spot that the original Totem Teddy stood when I first met it in 1946, just south of Hi Bridge between what was then BruInn (now Gray Hall and the Norton Theatre) and Gunter Hall.

All we really need is access to the site and the cooperation of the UNC facilities department. Ideally, there will be a small concrete base to secure the wooden blocks for safety's sake, though I'd love to have the cairn be a free standing structure.

Also, ideally, the image of the Bear himself will be somehow inscribed on the edges of the top tiers of the cairn (approximately three feet of space, starting ten feet from the ground.)

I perceive this installation as ephemeral because, as was the original Totem Teddy, this piece will be made of wood, open to the elements and will, in time deteriorate. If someone... a student or Greeley resident or faculty person is somehow inspired, as I was, to appreciate the Bear Tradition, perhaps, in the future, they will be responsible for another tribute to the Bear Totem: Totem Teddy.

I am trying to understand why this simple donation to my alma mater (my nurtuing mother) won't be welcomed with open arms. It's a gift. Simply, a gift.

If you support this idea? Please contact VP of Alumni Affairs Vicki Gorrell and President Kay Norton at the University of Northern Colorado and express your support. I'd like to make this donation before climbing a ladder becomes problematic for me!

Michael Sheehan
CSC 1963