Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

To the editor:

Nothing could be a better argument for sex education than the current controversy over the sculpture at Wasilla High School. Whoever is complaining about vaginas has no concept either in reality or the abstract of what a vagina looks like. This piece is no Judy Chicago knock-off. I could concur that the work has questionable artistic quality. But the artist and concept were judged by a panel, and the work vetted prior the project’s initiation — and what do I know about art?

I do know a bit about sex, and I know you would have to be extremely strange to find any sexual innuendo in this piece — any.

What seems to have happened here is the inverse of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Here some whippersnapper has said our fully dressed king is naked and the adults are saying “really?” This is the high school administration that tried to ban “Bohemian Rhapsody,” not to mention the high school of the 1984 Miss Wasilla. It is known for silly controversies that I’m pretty sure couldn’t happen anywhere else.

Curiously, the legitimate argument about the quality of the work is not being entertained. Perhaps this is because no one is qualified to address it or because it is just fine and meets the parameters set out in the contractual documents. I would think the later.

One of things the school board may look forward to is a backlash from artists. Often an artist’s work, especially public, is priced and constructed with an anticipation of exposure. The value of that exposure to lead into future commission is a form of future compensation. The work was accepted and installed the artists may be entitled to that future compensation.

Of course, we hear that the school board hasn’t a clue what to do. I would recommend they uncover it on Monday and live with it. Then I would have the youngsters with the overactive imaginations who created this tempest write 1,000 times: “Sigmund Freud said ‘sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.’”

Gregory Gusse

Palmer