A Look Behind the Scenes of CCU’s Chauncey Statues

Two of the minds behind the Chauncey statues cheered the growth of public art on Coastal’s campus. 

Logan Woodle, an associate professor of visual arts, said his experiences working on the first Chauncey statue, which was installed at the entrance of the TD Sports Complex in 2015, laid the groundwork for the even larger Chauncey statue that was installed by Brooks Stadium this September.  

While he designed the first statue, Woodle said his involvement with the latest project was more hands-off. Woodle said he was involved with interviewing and selecting the artist, sculptor Bryan Rapp, who spearheaded the newest project.  

“What we wanted was to be conscious of creative freedom,” Woodle said.  

He said they wanted to make sure Rapp was able to execute his own vision for the statue. Woodle noted how important the building of the first statue was for the visual arts department. He said it was a valuable learning experience for students. 

“I believe experiential learning is one of the strong points on this campus,” he said. 

Woodle also said much of the equipment used to construct the sculpture wasn’t there before the project began. Easton Selby, an Edwards College associate dean and professor of visual arts, said it was thanks to the efforts behind the first statue that they had the equipment for the latest one. 

“We could knock out 6-foot statues like nobody’s business these days,” he said, “but 12-foot is a whole different story.” 

Despite the newest statue posing a greater challenge, it was more of a natural progression after the growing pains of working on the first.  

Both Woodle and Selby seemed open to the prospect of future sculpture projects of this scale. The value of giving students hands-on experience was evident from both the new and old Chauncey statues. 

“We’re more than happy to work on projects when focusing on the students,” Selby said.