Anatomically Correct Gargoyle Flusters Officials

[matcom]

<snip>

An anatomically correct gargoyle outside a suburban West Palm Beach strip club has been a moving target of intrigue for county officials who've been snapping photos, debating the creature's artistic merits and commenting on its proportionality.

"Harold," a 1,200-pound, 7-foot-tall statue made of hardened clay, is a fanged, winged creature with a long tail.

T's Lounge owner Gary Odle has moved his 7-foot statue, called Harold, to different spots to allay county concerns.
Frank Cerabino

But they're not the anatomical features getting all the attention and causing T's Lounge owner Gary Odle to move the gargoyle again and again around his property to allay the concerns of county oglers.

"You've got to be standing 2 or 3 feet away from it to notice," Odle said.

It all started a few months ago when Odle bought the statue from a roadside art dealer in Key Largo.

"I have a home in the Keys and I've been passing that statue on the side of U.S. 1 for three years, and then one day I saw a 'for sale' sign on it," he said.

The statue's artist, Therisa Stack, said it took her two years to make the gargoyle she named Harold, and it was her husband's idea to add the wedding tackle.

"It was just a whim," she said. "It wasn't done out of spite."

Stack draped a towel over the statue's crotch for much of the six years it squatted alongside U.S. 1 waiting for a buyer. And when Odle bought it, she told him, in case he hadn't noticed, that the statue was fully endowed.

"He said, 'That's OK, as long as it isn't bigger than mine,' " Stack remembered.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/pbccentral/content/local_news/epaper/2006/07/21/m1a_BINO_0721.html

[ThomCat]

1. I sort of collect gargoyles.

and I wouldn't mind having one that was anatomically correct. As long as he doesn't scare the cats.