A Boy and his Turtle... or The Legend of Turtle Boy

Parents... this might be a good time to have that "talk" you've been meaning to have with your children...

Good friend and artist Jonathan Hansen have discussed the idea of doing a book featuring artists from the Worcester County and New England area doing their own interpretation of Turtle Boy.

Much like Narragansett Beer's slogan "If you're not drinking Narrgansett, you're not from New England" similar could be said about Turtle Boy "If you don't know what the heck Turtle Boy is, you're probably not from Worcester".

Turtle Boy is our own little oddity. The actual name of the sculpure is The Burnside Fountain. But it was given the affectionate nickname Turtle Boy by the locals. The original intention was suppose to be very mythological in origin with a nude young boy riding a sea turtle.

However, given the positioning of the lad and the expression on the turtles face some people are given the impression that... well... you do the math.

That aside, the idea is to feature 50 artists or so with the proceeds from the book going towards funding visual and performing arts in the city of Worcester. My lofty idea would have been to somehow fund reopening the much missed Foothills Theatre as both a working shared studio and performance space for both art shows and theatrical productions.

But I think that ambition might be a bit out of reach and I'm not sure if the Foothills building met with the wrecking ball when they finally got rid of that eye-sore known as the Common Outlets. Nonetheless, the money made WILL go towards visual and performing arts (and artists) in the city.

A formal application is in the works as well as formal announcement. So stay tuned.