A rainbow-painted fiberglass turkey in Brookline might miss some of Pride Month this year.
That’s because the sculpture is damaged and will soon be removed from its perch near the Washington Square T stop so the town can assess its condition, according to Gillian Jackson, the administrator for the Brookline Commission for the Arts.
“It is a little sad, you know, it is Pride month, but I’ll be very happy to see it repaired and restored,” said Jane Kim-Testa, the artist who designed the sculpture as one of Brookline’s Turkeys Around Town, a set of 10 turkey sculptures installed in 2024 using the town’s COVID relief funds.
Kim-Testa’s turkey was still in Washington Square on Thursday morning, but its head and body tilted backward, resting on the ground. Its legs were still anchored to the sculpture’s base, but they were almost entirely severed from the rest of the bird.
Damage to a fiberglass turkey sculpture in Brookline was visible on Thursday morning.Ariela Lopez for The Boston Globe
Titled “Love is Love is Love,” the turkey’s design celebrates Massachusetts’s LGBTQ+ community.
“As a queer person myself, I’m very proud of the fact that Massachusetts was the first state in the United States to legalize same-sex marriage,” Kim-Testa said in a phone interview Thursday. “I was like, it would be nice to have a rainbow-Pride-something in the town, just to be like ‘you’re welcome here’ to other queer people in the area.”
In addition to painting the turkey in the colors of the intersex-inclusive progress Pride flag, Kim-Testa decorated the bird with various translations of the word “love.” They said they used Brookline’s demographic data to decide which languages to use.
Kim-Testa learned of the damage from a friend on June 9.
Frank Jefferson, who owns Brookline Frames on Beacon Street, said he noticed the damage last week, when the area experienced extremely hot weather.
“I don’t know if it was heat or vandalism,” Jefferson said.
Brookline police did not respond to questions about whether they’re investigating the damage to the sculpture.
Kim-Testa does not believe the turkey was deliberately harmed. They said it had been previously damaged during transport to Washington Square, and it was wobbly from the start.
“It probably was just that the weather did its thing,” Kim-Testa said. “There’s been a lot of windy days lately. And I’ve seen a lot of little kids get really excited about the turkey and go up to it.”
Jackson called the damage to the turkey “very unfortunate.”
“So far as we know there have been no other reports of damage to the rest of the flock,” Jackson wrote.
Ariela Lopez can be reached at ariela.lopez@globe.com. Follow her on X @ariela__lopez.