Proposals for Crybaby Hill statue, renderings released by City of Tulsa

TULSA, Okla. — The City of Tulsa released proposals from other artists who submitted for the Crybaby Hill statue.

It’s the first time the community sees models that have faced the selected one.

This comes after weeks of Tulsans and Riverview residents wanting to see these submissions.

2 News took those submissions and took them back to the community.

“This is the history of Tulsa in a statue versus what they originally proposed,” said Lucas Daffern, who was walking near where the sculpture will be.

This is the rendering he was looking at.

Eric F. Garcia

The hill is prominent, especially being so visible from Highway 75. Daffern said he wanted something to represent Tulsa and Route 66, as well as Crybaby Hill.

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“It’s definitely going to create confusion for people driving through them. Obviously, local residents will know, but someone driving from Dallas to Kansas City or whatever, they’re going to drive by and just think it’s a statue of a kid who cry.” Daffern said.

2 News first covered this story after the statue of artist Ken Kelleher was selected. In that story, Tulsa artist Chris Wollard talked about money to keep art from staying local.

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2 News met again on September 26 after the replays were released.

“I don’t think there’s ever been this much interest in a piece of public art before. I’m all for it. I’m all for, I think, transparency,” Wollard said.

Wollard said he never wants to judge other artists’ work.

But he said he enjoys his work, and the other proposals are acknowledged. This allows the public to see their art, he said.
“These proposals take a long time. You know you have to come up with a concept. You have to come up with a rendering and figure out some kind of logistics, timeline, budget, all kinds of things,” Wollard said.

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While the city shared them, that doesn’t mean they’re swaying from the design selected by artist Ken Kelleher.

The city has been adamant that they will move forward with the artist they have selected.

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