IN RALEIGH, IT’S YEAR OF RED WOLF
Joanna Kakassis
“The News & Observer”
Raleigh, North Carolina
Tuesday March 20, 2001, p. B1
Raleigh, NC - The wolf wears a sheepskin jacket, a thick gold chain and a pudgy green “mom” tattoo. “I call him J.D., for James Dean,” says Kyle Highsmith, the 53-year-old North Carolina artist who is brushing taupe paint on the canvas that holds J.D. and his cigarette-dangling, sunglass-shielded, motorcycle-loving mystique. “The characters that James Dean portrayed were sort of a tough and vulnerable group. They had sort of a tough exterior that needed something. They were misunderstood.”
Today, J.D. and a cadre of local art boosters will publicly open the fundraising campaign for “Raleigh Red Wolf Ramble”- the city’s latest venture into public art. So far, the Raleigh Arts Commission has raised $32,200 of the $400,000 it will need to hire artists who will transform 145 howling or roving fiberglass wolves into art. The sponsors who have already signed on include the Carolina Hurricanes.
When the larger-than-life wolves are finished, they will be displayed around the city from September 7 to December 31. Then, sponsors will auction the wolves and give half of the proceeds to a nonprofit group of their choice and half to future public art in the city.
Ah, but that’s months away. Meanwhile, there’s that fund-raising goal. “Four hundred thousand dollars- that’s a big number,” says Linda Rae Hall, executive director of the arts commission, which advises the City Council on art projects.
How will she and her colleagues do it? “We think our exhibit will be interestingly different,” she says.
Different from the pigs of Cincinnati, the lizards of Orlando, Fla., the horses of Lexington, Ky., or the cows of Chicago and New York? Raleigh’s wolves are in some ways, an imitation of an art craze that hit several years ago. The commission has even encouraged any artists interested in the exhibit to check out previous exhibits for ideas.
But Hall says Raleigh will have its own twist. For one, the red wolf is an endangered species. The arts commission says it will use the exhibit, with the help of the N.C. Wildlife Federation, to educate schoolchildren. Says Hall: “You can’t do that with a mermaid [Norfolk, Va.] or a chair [Charlotte].”
Raleigh will also have Georges Le Chevallier- a 35-year-old, French-born, New York City-educated artist and art teacher who left the bustling metropolis for a taste of the gentle life. It also helps that he has already painted “Tattooed Bovine,” a Maori- inspired cow, for the Cow Parade in New York last year.
“I think it’s more important for the wolf to happen in Raleigh even more than in New York,” says Le Chevallier, who moved to Raleigh with his wife, Carrie, about six months ago. “I think it should have a bigger impact here. People will walk down the street and see a pleasant surprise.”
He shuffles through some photographs of himself painting “Tattooed Bovine.” “It took two weeks,” he says, pointing to one snapshot. He got $2,000 for the piece, the amount he’ll get here if he paints a wolf.
Meanwhile, Highsmith is dabbling at J.D.’s ears, finishing the painting for today’s news conference at City Hall. J.D. isn’t like abny of Highsmith’s other works- the cool, shady oil paintings of Alsatian cafes and Key West sunsets that hang around his studio at downtown Raleigh’s Artspace. This doesn’t bother him. This is supposed to be fun.
“He looks more like a bloomin’ director than an actor,” says Highsmith, looking at J.D.’s beefy jaws. The artist laughs. “Whoever he is, he still misunderstood.”