http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/08/02/scu
lpturegun0802_01.html

Gun to Be Chiseled Off Public
Sculpture
Anti-Gun Advocates Object to Water Pistol Imagery

Aug. 2, 2000

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The boy and girl,
slightly crouched, take aim at one another.
She has a hose. He brandishes a water pistol.

For Linda Strong, it was an image that
captured all the joy of being young.

When the sculptor was asked to create a
fountain for a city park, it was a natural: Using
her children as models, she caught in bronze
their many water fights.

Last year, following the deaths of 14 students
and a teacher at Columbine High School in
Colorado, there were letters to a local
newspaper and calls to City Hall objecting to
the fountain.

Hose nozzle to replace gun

So Strong is about to alter her sculpture in
this art-savvy city. She plans to chisel off the
boy’s hand Thursday and give him a new one,
holding a garden hose rather than a gun.

“At first I didn’t consider doing anything about
it,” said Strong, sitting in her studio south of
Santa Fe. “I just went, ‘Oh, listen to these
people.’”

But then her fountain was vandalized. The
boy was smeared with green paint, and someone wrote “no gun”
on his
legs. The artist became intent on protecting her work.

“And so I capitulated. I thought, the times have changed,” she
said. “I am
open-minded enough to change with the times.”

Strong went to the city, and the Santa Fe Arts Commission
recommended
the change.

‘Don’t like revisionism in art’

“I don’t like revisionism in art, but I think art in public places has
another
responsibility,” said commission chairwoman Letitia Frank.

Not everyone agrees with the revision.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” said Diana Beilman,
15,
glancing over at the sculpture from a nearby skateboard park.
“Little boys
hold guns all the time.”

A gift to the city from Strong’s late mother, the fountain was
dedicated in
October 1979, the International Year of the Child.

There were objections even then. In a yellowed letter-to-the-editor
in one of
Strong’s scrapbooks, Charlene Neel refers to a recent shooting
over a
traffic dispute, and writes that there is “quite enough (violence) on
television
and on the streets of Santa Fe.”

Against guns and war toys

The writer — now Charlene Neel Dye of Oxford, Miss. — recalls that
at the
time, she wouldn’t allow her young son to play with guns or war
toys.

When she saw the fountain, “I was shocked. The little boy was in
such an
aggressive stance, and he had a gun.” She remembers other
friends
sharing her concern.
I don’t guess the misguided moms were ever young….

=================
But Jack Samson, who moved to Santa Fe in 1930, blames “self-
appointed
guardians of our morality” for the planned alteration.

“It is an effort to be politically correct, and I think it goes over the
bounds of
common sense,” said Samson, a former editor of Field & Stream.

The estimated cost of the alteration is about $1,700.