The bronze sculpture of Francis the pig has returned to downtown Red Deer.<\/p>\n
In 1990, a\u00a0pig named Francis jumped over a 1.2-metre enclosure at a local butcher shop and was on the run for five months. Francis evaded capture, forging in parks around West Park and became a media sensation.<\/p>\n
“School children and animal lovers rallied for his safety, sending letters and cards to Red Deer city council begging for him to be spared and live out his days,” said Colleen Sharpe, culture and social community development co-ordinator\u00a0with the City of Red Deer.<\/p>\n
Francis eventually died due to an injury caused by a tranquillizer dart.<\/p>\n
“His legend never truly dies. In fact, I just found out recently that there’s a food truck in Minneapolis, Minnesota, named after Francis. On their ‘about’ page they have photos of those letters from the school children in Red Deer, Alberta. It’s a vegetarian food truck. … His story lives on internationally,” Sharpe said.<\/p>\n
In 1998, Francis was immortalized as part of Red Deer’s Public Art Ghost Collection,\u00a0which is one of the largest life-size bronze sculpture collections in Canada. The sculpture was completed by artist Danek Mozdzenski.<\/p>\n
“The Ghost Collection is special for people new to Red Deer or those who have been here for a long time. They can learn the legends of the people and animals who helped shape Red Deer,” said Sharpe.<\/p>\n
In 2023, damage was noticed on the four thin posts that held Francis into\u00a0the ground by the\u00a0Central Spray and Play, near the intersection of\u00a047A Avenue and 48\u00a0Street.<\/p>\n
“It looked like someone had been sawing into it. It was a little worrying, so we took him away to be safe,” said Sharpe.<\/p>\n
The city then enlisted the original artist to update the sculpture with a\u00a0bigger and more secure base.\u00a0Mozdzenski spent the past year designing and creating the new base, which was revealed on Friday, Aug. 29.<\/p>\n
“Francis took great initiative in the face of overwhelming adversity. There’s a lesson there for all of us. Taking the plunge can make all the difference in the world. Let him live on as a shining example. In my sculpture, Francis is still running and forever free,” Mozdzenski during the unveiling\u00a0of the updated sculpture.<\/p>\n
The sculpture was moved from the north side of the Central Spray and Play to the east side. Sharpe noted city staff determined the park was still the best location for Francis the pig.<\/p>\n
“The children at the spray park love having Francis here,”said Sharpe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s also close to the Golden Circle for our seniors. It’s close to the Recreation Centre too. By moving it next to the path (near 47A\u00a0Avenue) it’s near the condominiums, it’s very visible and well lit. We wanted it to be in a location where no one could sneakily do any damage to it in the future. But I do think with the new base, that’d be very difficult. We needed to use a crane to get it here. It’s so much stronger.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bronze sculpture of Francis the pig has returned to downtown Red Deer. In 1990, a\u00a0pig named Francis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75,61827],"class_list":{"0":"post-109042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-red-deer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}