Eighteen years ago, a huge public art project was undertaken in the city of Buffalo to raise funds for the Roswell Park Cancer Institute.
“Herd About Buffalo” was a collaboration of the Roswell Park Alliance and the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Western New York artists were tasked with creating unique sculptures made from plain white fiberglass buffaloes, transforming them by painting or other artistic means into unusual iconic bison, which piqued the curiosity, enlightened, and entertained many residents and visitors all over the region.
These life-sized, three dimensional buffaloes began to mysteriously pop up, seemingly out of nowhere almost overnight in late April of 2000 and continued to magically appear through June. By October, the strange creatures were “roaming” in public all over the Queen City.
Each buffalo was sponsored by a corporation, organization, or group of individuals. They were eventually sold to the highest bidders to raise funds for both Roswell and Burchfield Penney. Some remain where they originally stood like the blue/white buffalo that stands on the lawn of the Jewish Center on Delaware Avenue or its famous silver-winged brother who found grazing land down the street in front of a local law firm.
One of the funniest, the “Teddy Roosevelt” originally was left “saddled” outside T.R.’s Inaugural Site, in front of the Wilcox Mansion, but apparently, it wandered off to greener pastures. And others, like the Elvis Presley, the Buffalo Nickel, and the Snow Globe Buffalo also found new homes. It’s a treat to stumble upon one today, a huge animal that looks like an escapee from some alternate universe.
The woman who championed this public art display was the quick-witted and strong-willed Patricia Capstraw Wilkins. Born in Utica, NY, in 1945, Patty was a graduate of Rosary Hill College and did postgraduate work in literature at Trinity College in Dublin. After Ireland, she moved to Paris, and ultimately returned to Buffalo to take up a career as a teacher and later a paralegal, working also for the Buffalo Urban League, as well as a volunteer at Roswell Park.
It was she, who after a visit to Chicago in 1999, conceived the idea of the “Buffalo Herd.”
There was a great deal of publicity surrounding the “stampede” in the city. What was not revealed was that Patricia herself was a victim of cancer. Her personal struggle was the fuel that drove her to turn this delightful city-wide art exhibit into research dollars for the nation’s first cancer hospital where she had cared for so many, and where she herself would succumb to the disease for which she fought so hard to find a cure.
She died on August 23, 2000 at the age of 55, never knowing just how successful the Buffalo Herd Project would become.
Sally Russell, her friend and co-chair of the project said, "She was an inspiration-a great leader… She wanted to make a difference in this town, and she did.”
Former Mayor of Buffalo Anthony Masiello stated: “This project will long serve as a reminder of her generous and selfless spirit. She brought (as a volunteer to the hospital) happiness and hope to those receiving care and later, as a patient, Patty faced her own illness with courage, dignity, and faith.”
Patricia Capstraw Wilkins found a way to transform sorrow and pain into laughter through the marriage of art and science under the auspices of public works. That is a lesson and an inspiration for us all.
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