Art Chowder September | October, Issue 17 | Page 9

I
f you’re like me and you amble
along Coeur d’Alene Lake on a
sunny day, you’re likely to be drawn
to a bronze statue of a moose with a
mouse hiding in his antlers — one of
five sculptural portrayals of Mudgy &
Millie, the famed and beloved collab-
oration between author Susan Hagen
Nipp, illustrator Charles Reasoner,
and artist Terry Lee.

After interviewing Terry at his studio
in Hayden, I hotfooted it down to
Front Street by the newly developed
McEuen Park to get in the groove
with his public sculptures and take
lunch near his Workers of Idaho. To
look at them you wouldn’t believe
it is the same artist. The Construc-
tion Worker (2015) and The Farmer
(2017) — in contrast with the capri-
cious moose and mouse team — are
realistic, life-sized, and extremely
detailed.
Right now the bronze series is
comprised of just the two, funded
and donated respectively by Dean
and Cindy Haagenson (Construc-
tion Northwest, Inc, redevelopers
of McEuen Park) and Doyle Jacklin
(Jacklin Seed Company).
There are plans for five or six total,
including a lumberjack, a miner, and
a yet-to-be-funded woman character.
Under consideration is a World War
II Navy nurse (Farragut was a naval
and training base then, a huge big
deal); I thought a World War II Navy
nurse in her nursing outfit would be
an interesting sculpture as it ties into
the history of Coeur d’Alene. Anoth-
er woman character would possibly
be a late nineteenth-century woman
in the act of voting; Idaho was among
the first five states to pass women’s
suffrage laws.
September |October 2018
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