Council wants to add giant bear statue to Pisgah Forest roundabout
Ann DerGara | Submitted Rendering
A conceptual rendering shows what the bear statue could look like in the Pisgah Forest roundabout.
The Brevard City Council voted Monday to approve amendments to the landscape planning for the coming Pisgah Forest roundabout to include a large metal bear statue as the centerpiece of the traffic circle at the entrance to the national forest.
The idea was presented to city council by local artist and gallery owner Ann DerGara who has already raised $20,000 for the sculpture and found a local artist, Charles Calvin Guffey, to commission to make the piece.
DerGara is the owner of the Red Wolf Gallery on Main Street and is responsible for the animal statues spread around Brevard as well as the instrument sculptures around Brevard College.
DerGara said she was able to raise money for those sculptures from private funds and relied on many of the connections she already had for funding of this new project.
The statue, like all of the others already in public spaces in the city, would be paid for by donations from community members to city administration, but the maintenance and insurance costs for the sculptures are incurred by the city.
Arts are important to small communities which rely on tourism, DerGara said, and the larger-than-life bear sculpture would be a generational landmark in Brevard for years to come.
The proposed size of the bear would be 7.5 feet high and 10 feet long, larger than any recorded living black bear.
DerGara and Calvin presented a life-size sketch of the proposed bear statue to the city council members during their meeting.
DerGara said the statue could serve as a landmark to guide tourists into the park.
She said she envisions the bear pointing towards the park entrance atop a series of stone bases.
The council voted unanimously to approve the amendment to the landscaping contract to instruct the contractor, McAdams, to incorporate the bear statue into their designs.
The current cost to add the bear to the landscape planning is estimated at $2,200.
The previous designs for the space were to feature a heavily wooded area with rocks and lighting pointing up through the branches of large trees.
Mayor Maureen Copelof said she and City Manager Wilson Hooper had already spoken with NCDOT about adding the bear to the landscape design and the state roads organization did not seem opposed to the idea.
“The National Forests are in trouble now,” DerGara said. “And we can’t lose that tourist attraction. It’s very important to this community. So the bear being there, the bears are worshiped here. We love them.”
