First Coast Register August/September 2015 | Page 35

Jacksonville has its painted jaguars. The Jacksonville
Beaches have their painted sea turtles. Soon, St. Augustine
will celebrate with its own painted monuments: obelisks.
As part of the new Tour of Compassion public art
project, 25 eight-foot obelisks have been decorated by
professional artists and will soon become permanent,
public installations around the St. Augustine region.
The public decoration and installation project is
modeled after CowParade, a project that started in
Switzerland in 1998 and has gained popularity worldwide.
The public art projects modeled after CowParade begin
with one sculpture form that is duplicated, decorated by
artists and placed in public spaces. Often, the sculptures
are later sold to raise funds for the city or for arts projects.
Locally, the project is headed by a partnership
between Compassionate St. Augustine, the Crisp-Ellert
Art Museum of Flagler College and the Community
Foundation for Northeast Florida.
Artists were selected in February and completed work
on their obelisks this summer. The obelisks painted are
replicas of the 30-foot Monumento de la Constitucion
obelisk on St. Augustine’s public square. The artists were
challenged to interpret the four foundational values of
the monument, originally dedicated