CAPE MERMAID ISN’T SO LITTLE
Salty’s owner says scultpure is ‘art’
A sand sculpture of a voluptuous mermaid featuring bikini clamshell cups that runneth over is making waves in Yarmouth to the chagrin of restaurateur Ray Roy, who says political correctness is threatening his “art” like a bucket of water.
And while Roy doesn’t deny the curvaceous carving he commissioned for $1,000 is more Raquel Welch than “The Little Mermaid,” the owner of Salty’s Seafood on Route 28 says morality complaints made to police and other town officials are “all kind of ridiculous, honestly.”
“I think people have got nothing better to do. There’s more worries in this world than a sand sculpture, but I believe the minority rules when it comes to art, and that’s all this is — a sand sculpture as art,” said Roy, whose eatery is in its 16th season in West Yarmouth.
The sculpture — which Roy said has only been up a week — is but one of 41 created around town by New Hampshire sculptor Greg Grady and a team of artists for the Yarmouth Summer Celebration. It is touted as the biggest sand sculpture event of its kind in the world. Roy said he has had mermaids in past years, but this summer asked for one emblematic of Salty’s logo: a busty mermaid astride a lobster.
“I wanted bigger (breasts) than last year and I wanted her skinnier. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it, frankly,” he said. “It’s a mermaid riding a lobster. You would have to stare at it to understand what was going on.”
Yarmouth police Chief Frank Frederickson thought it would be nice to post a “Sand Sculpture of the Day” photo on his department’s Facebook page with his iPhone. He randomly started with Salty’s mermaid. When off-color social media catcalls and then complaints about decency ensued, the sandy siren’s portrait was eighty-sixed and replaced Friday with this mea culpa post from police: “Our apologies for posting the Salty’s Diner mermaid sculpture. It was removed from this site due to complaints.”
Frederickson said the only colossal thing that jumped out at him when he took the picture was the crustacean because, “I’m a lobster fan.”
While there’s “nothing obscene” about the mermaid as far as Frederickson is concerned, he said, “We also didn’t want to be derogatory towards women. From my perspective, it’s one of those things that you can never please everybody. The intention was to bring attention to these amazing works of art and to set the town apart from everyone else in a big way. It’s not the worst thing we dealt with all weekend.”
Mary Vilbon, executive director of the Yarmouth Chamber of Commerce, said it’s not her organization’s place to censor the sculptures; however, the group did reach out to police out of concern that racy social media commentary about the mermaid’s physical attributes was getting over the top.
“We love the sand sculpture. We have no problem with it,” Vilbon said. “All 41 of our sand sculptures are amazing. It’s art. Everything is subjective.”