The Boulder artist who designed and built “Endurance,” a collection of cyclist sculptures at the Florida Road roundabout, said he was saddened by the destruction of his work but grateful no one was hurt.
At least three of the sculptures were damaged Sunday night when a driver jumped the roundabout and crashed into the cycling figures. The driver was arrested on suspicion of impaired driving.
“Nobody was hurt. That’s certainly the most important thing,” said Joshua Wiener, when reached Monday for comment.
Wiener is an avid cyclist and sculptor who lives in Boulder. He said he learned of the crash and the damage to his public art piece from a friend.
The piece can be remade, and though it is unfortunate to see it broken, the outpouring of community support has been touching, he said.
“It’s with a heavy heart that it’s been damaged,” he said. “But that’s kind of the beauty of metal – it could be fixed, it could be rebuilt. I’d certainly aim to, if we went that direction, utilize as much as possible of what is salvageable.”
Residents have long decorated the sculptures for holidays and local or national events: rabbit ears for Easter, Santa hats for Christmas, pumpkin buckets for Halloween, and firefighter gear to honor a firefighter hit and killed by a drunken driver.
City spokesman Tom Sluis said in a text to The Durango Herald that the city is submitting a claim to its insurance company regarding “Endurance,” and that Wiener had reached out to the city offering to help repair the sculpture.
Wiener lived on Florida Road for 10 years, and “Endurance” was installed in 2012 to commemorate the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. It was constructed from 12,000 individual steel parts and 28,000 welds and took roughly three months to complete, he said.
“There’s a lot of parts and pieces,” he said. “I really tried to get the feeling in each figure – the gesture, the position.”
He said the piece represents his love for Durango, cycling, and his brother, Adam, who died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and got him into the sport.
“It’s really one of my all-time favorite pieces, in relation to my brother, the town, the community, the friends that I’ve played with on wheels or on snow,” Wiener said. “There’s this sense of play. There’s a little bit of humor to have five cyclists in the middle of the road. I’ve been really honored to have had it there as long as I have, and I really hope to see it rise again.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
