BEMIDJI, Minn. — The city manager’s decision to remove one of nine beaver statues placed throughout Bemidji because of complaints it looked pornographic sparked a holiday weekend fight with the artist who created it. Bemidji city manager John Chattin said he decided Thursday to remove the statue after receiving about 20 complaints. That decision angered artist Deborah Davis — who said she didn’t intend to offend or titillate — and from some community members and fellow artists who expressed their outrage on Facebook and the Web site of the Bemidji Pioneer.
Yes, it’s true; few phrases are guaranteed to raise the ire of the uber-Jesus-y moralists and guardians of public decency than than “painted beaver”. Before you begin letting your imagination head off in an unsavory direction, you should probably understand that this “painted beaver” is not something you’ll find on your average porn site. No, we’re talking about an actual painted beaver…you know, the animal with huge front teeth that builds dams out of trees that it brings down itself? Nothing untoward or salacious about that…unless, of course, you’re wired to create offense from whole cloth…and apparently there are no lack of such pinheads out there, somewhere of them near where I grew up.
Bemidji is a small, bucolic college town smack in the middle of nowhere in northern Minnesota. It’s about 40 miles north of Walker, the even smaller town in which I grew up. When I was a kid, a trip to Bemidji was what I knew as “going to the big city”. Now, Bemidji is not much larger, but it’s still home to a collection of very small minds. Then again, if you lived in Bemidji, you probably wouldn’t have anything better to do than to find the offensive in places where it doesn’t exist.
Remember, one person’s art is another salacious pronography. Especially when it comes to painting beavers.
“I am just so sick and tired of other people making decisions about what is best for me, or for anyone else for that matter,” Bemidji resident Karen Ann Kimbrough wrote on a Facebook page that sprung up in support of Davis, who lives in nearby Blackduck.
Davis’s statue, titled “Gaea,” features forms of the female body as well as a tree and flower. The beaver’s belly shows a human figure rising from a sea of pinkish-red circles.
“I did not intend it to be sexual or titillating in any way,” Davis told the Bemidji Pioneer. She noted she is a former kindergarten teacher who has counseled women and girls.
“I would never do pornography. I am anti-pornography,” she said.
This, of course, sounds silly. Actually, it’s beyond silly, but it’s so typical of the insular world in which I grew up. I grew up around many people whose worldview was formed by two things and two things only: the evening news and the Bible…and not necessarily in that order. Anything that doesn’t fit into this narrow world view is ipso facto considered to be bad, evil, and, in this case, pornographic.
Granted, I haven’t seen photos of the painted beaver in question, and I don’t know that I really need to. I do know that art is in the eye of the beholder, but even with that, the fact that 20 people could take offense over a work of art is stunning. That so many people could seriously believe that their point of view and their prejudice trumps those folks who see nothing but artistic expression is the height of arrogance. Then again, these are my people…and I’m not at all surprised.
If it sounds like a few people need to get our more, it’s because they do. Then again, if you lived in Bemidji, MN, you’d be seeing painted beavers everywhere, and you’d need to get out yourself. As soon as humanly possible.
