An alligator with origins in Polk County now stands sentry outside a citadel of scholarship in Gainesville.
When fall classes open Aug. 21 at the University of Florida, students will find a realistic bronze sculpture of a 10-foot bull alligator poised near the entrance to Library West.
David Price of Lake Wales created the sculpture, titled “Focused Attention” and based on his observations of the prehistoric reptiles, both in Polk County and elsewhere. The sculpture is identical to one on display outside the visitor center at Bok Tower Gardens, where Price is president.
A third sculpture cast from the same mold in 2016 is in a private collection, Price said.
The A. H. Burnett Foundation acquired and donated the 430-pound sculpture in 2016 to George A. Smathers Libraries, according to a news release from the University of Florida. For the next nine years, the sculpture was exhibited inside on the third floor of Library West.
“It was in one of their computer areas, so you had to go looking for it,” Price said.
Judy Russell, dean of George A. Smathers Libraries until her recent retirement, told Price that she wanted to see the sculpture displayed near the entrance to the library. When UF completed a renovation of the colonnade in front of the library, workers installed the sculpture on a base of Florida limestone, its fierce and toothy visage facing the Plaza of the Americas.
Hoping to give inspiration
Price traveled to Gainesville on Aug. 12 for a private showing for leaders of the Burnett Foundation. He plans to return for the official unveiling at 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 21, the first day of fall classes.
Though the University of Florida’s athletic teams are known as the Gators, Price — a Clemson University graduate — said his sculpture is intended to provoke awe toward the natural world rather than sporting passion.
“It represents scholarship and science and studies,” he said. “I think they’re noble creatures. And so, I’m really happy to have this one in front of the library. It was real fitting for that ‘Focused Attention’ be put out front of the library and hopefully inspire students to stay focused on their goals.”
Price said the alligator is a composite of many he observed and photographed — in the wild in Polk County, at Paynes Prairie near Gainesville and at alligator farms. He also studied skulls and taxidermied specimens.
Inspired by the outdoor sculpture collection at Brookgreen Gardens in his native South Carolina, Price began carving wood and stone in high school and dabbled in sculpture. He returned to the form more seriously in the early 1990s.
To create “Focused Attention,” Price crafted a clay model, from which a rubber mold was made as the basis for a wax casting. That provided the form for a hollow ceramic mold, into which molten bronze was poured. Price employed Bronze Art in Sarasota to do the casting.
“It takes a lot of work to go from the bronze casting to then a sculpture, a lot of chasing, which is metal work, and grinding and welding, and then it’s polished where it needs to be,” Price said. “And then chemicals are put on it to give it a patina, a color.”
Touching is allowed
The alligator of “Focused Attention” is nine feet long, but it would reach 10 feet if its tail were not curled.
The sculpture is the sixth of an alligator to be displayed on campus, a UF news release said. Perhaps the best known is an open-jawed bull gator stationed outside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
In addition to his alligators, Price has sculpted sandhill cranes, ospreys, barred owls, bears, foxes, gopher tortoises and Eastern indigo snakes. His cranes are on display at Bok Tower Gardens, along with a sculpture of an oversized gopher tortoise accompanied by nine other animals, including a rabbit.
The title, “Focused Attention,” reflects the rapt concentration shown by alligators and other natural predators. And do not ask Price if his alligator has a nickname.
“I don’t want to trivialize my pieces by giving them a human name,” he said.
That does not mean that Price expects those who encounter “Focused Attention” on the UF campus to keep a respectful distance. Before the installation, he imagined students touching the alligator’s nose for good luck on exams.
“And then somebody else, in that showing we had last week, said, ‘You know what, I think people will touch this to get good luck,’” he said. “And my wife, driving home, I didn’t tell her, but she said, ‘I think students are going to touch the nose just to bring good luck.’ So, the word’s out there. Maybe it will become a legend.”
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.