Tiny Toads
Public-art project combines history, scavenger hunt
Tiny bronze toads will be hopping into downtown Conway in a project that combines art and history with a scavenger-hunt twist. The Tiny Toads Initiative, commissioned by the Conway Planning and Development Department, will place toad sculptures at 10 historic buildings and locations in or near downtown Conway.
James Walden, director of planning and development, said “it’s a public-art project, but also a public-history project.”
“One of the things that makes downtowns neat is that there’s always something that’s unique; something that’s unexpected,” Walden said. “Within the downtown environment, you like to engineer these happy little accidents that people don’t realize are there, that you don’t experience until you get out and walk around.”
Tiny Toad Tour pamphlets will be available and will explain the history of each building or location where the tiny toads are placed.
How tiny is tiny? Each sculpture is 9 to 12 inches tall.
The $20,000 project is being paid for with a $10,000 grant from the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program through a joint effort between the Conway Downtown Partnership and Conway Public Art Board, and $10,000 from the city’s public-art fund. The fund is made up of allocations from the Advertising and Promotion Commission.
Conway Public Art Board President Payton Christenberry said the inspiration came from Mice on Main in Greenville, South Carolina. He said a similar project for Conway has been discussed for years.
“We definitely figured with Conway and all the historic buildings we have downtown and … so many nice stories clustered in downtown Conway,” having sculptures along with an accompanying booklet “seemed to be a natural fit,” Christenberry said.
The Tiny Toads Tour pamphlet explains that Conway was developed around the railroad depot as Conway Station in 1871. Several of its landmark buildings are still here, including more than 70 buildings in the original town center.
“What the public can expect, and what I’m most excited about, is that each one of the proposed toads has a fitting little story with it,” Christenberry said. “Each one has a little vignette that’s a nod to the history of the space.”
The toad for the old Smith Ford showroom at 1020 Front St. is driving a 1923 Model T; the Halter Building, 1125 Oak St., will have two toads dancing, representing the youth dances that took place upstairs decades ago.
In addition to those two buildings, the other sites are buildings that once housed the following:
Frauenthal and Schwarz, 824 Front St.; the Faulkner County Jail (now the Faulkner County Museum), 801 Locust Ave./ courthouse square; Goad Brothers Cafe and Bakery, 1304 Oak St.; Farmers State Bank,
1001 Front St.; GrummerMassey Hardware, 1022 Oak St.; Golden Drag Cafe, 1151 Markham St.; the Railroad Depot Site, 1200 block of Main Street; along with the East Side Community at MLK Square, which is under construction at 1110 Spencer St.
Most of the sites are included in the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places.
Artist Calvin Stinger of Beebe, formerly of Conway, was selected to create the sculptures for the Tiny Toads Initiative.
Stinger’s artwork is already on display downtown. His “Whimsical Toad” is on the sidewalk at Front and Oak streets and has become a popular place for people to take photos. Stinger said he came up with the idea of the big toad.
“When they put out a call for an artist for that one, they were just looking for a generic sculpture to go on that corner. As I read more about it and was thinking of ideas — of course, I had other ideas, too — after talking to my wife about it, I came up with the idea of the toad because it’s Toad Suck Square.”
Stinger made the toad sitting on a bench that is shaped like a leaf, and it invites people to sit down and interact with the toad.
Stinger, an Idaho native, was living in Salem, Oregon, when he met his wife, who is from Beebe. They lived in a Conway for about three years before moving to Beebe.
“I’m still laughing about the term Toad Suck. Being from the Northwest, I’d never heard of it. I thought it was fun that they like the toads,” he said.
Kim Williams, director of the Conway Downtown Partnership, said the project is a great combination of fun and education.
“It’s one of those great art installations that will actually be a teaching moment because people will get to actually learn about the historic buildings, the historic context,” Williams said. “It’s just telling the story of those buildings, the people behind them and how downtown was kind of formed.”
She said it’s just one more layer of enhancing downtown Conway.
“It’s encouraging people into the public space and really playing on Toad Suck and all that,” she said. “It’s our heritage; we might as well embrace it.”
Conway Mayor Bart Castleberry said the art will be an interesting addition to downtown.
“Not only will it give kids something to look for, but adults as well. It’s conversational, and it’s more art downtown,” he said.
Christenberry said families can go together to find the bronze toads “in the wild that are amazing to look at and dig a little deeper [into the city’s history]. It’s meant to be a fun project that also helps educate people about Conway’s identity, Conway’s history.”
“I’m not a capital-A art person, but I do appreciate art. I think I recognize, and I really enjoy, like the tiny toads project, so much more than they’re just nice to look at,” he said. “It’s an interesting way to engage with the city, drive around town … and see little pieces of local culture, local color.
“I hope that we focus first and foremost on enriching Conway residents, but we want people to come visit and say, ‘Wow, look at Conway,’ and stay to eat and shop.”
Stinger said it was fun learning about the history of downtown Conway while working on the tiny toads.
“They sent me a bunch of information on those places,” Stinger said. “They’re all new to me, not being from Conway. I’ve seen some in the meantime. It was very interesting reading the history of these old buildings.”
Asked to name his favorite tiny toad, Stinger said, “I’m liking the one that’s going to go in front of the bank, ‘Mr. Moneybags.’” Stinger dressed the toad in a top hat and tails, and he is leaning on a cane and proudly holding a bag of money.
Another example is the toad Stinger created for Grummer-Massey Hardware, which most recently was an antique store.
“How fun for a hardware store, a toad hefting a big hammer,” Stinger said.
Stinger said he created the “rough” oil-clay maquettes as part of his artist’s proposal. Creating the actual statues from clay to bronze is a tedious, generally seven-step process, but many of the steps are repeated, he said. The process includes melting bronze in a 2,100-degree furnace to pour into the molds.
He will also install the artwork, and he is making the statues safe from toadnapping. Each will be cast on a bronze base with bolts underneath that will be drilled into the concrete of the sidewalks. Each statue will weigh about 10 pounds, although it depends on how many toads there are on each base.
Stinger said his goal is to have the toads finished in March or April, but he doesn’t know when installation will be.
“As all art projects go, things can slow you down for some reason. When I get to the point of casting the bronze, it all depends on the weather — coldness, wind, rain — because I cast out in the open under a covered area,” he said.
“I’m just having a fun time doing them. That’s what I think is going to be fun: the kids out searching for them, looking for them. That’s why they’re whimsical, not too serious,” Stinger said. “I’m hoping that it will bring more awareness to these historic sites like it did for me because I found the information about these buildings and the people very interesting.”