Manatee sculptures fill the gap between nature and humanity; offer warning of caution
Manatee sculptures fill the gap between nature and humanity; offer warning of caution
When Tiité Baquero reaches for canvas, a piece of metal or, in fact, any material, he creates more than just a piece of art. The Naples artist once made a portrait of a baby manatee out of its embryonic tissue. “I recorded the birth― art has never done it before,” Baquero says, showing a 30-year-old photo of the 72-pound baby manatee.
That piece and others like it defined Baquero as a pioneer, his artwork conveying a forceful environmental message beyond the visual impact. Among his early and most public work, for instance, is Homage to the Orange River Valley northbound motorists see passing over the Interstate 75 bridge in North Fort Myers― between exits 141 and 143―or boating the Caloosahatchee at the mouth of the Orange River: The sculpted metal silhouette of two life-size West Indian manatees, Romeo and Juliet, which he completed in the 1980s.
As easy as it is to look at the manatee monument and think of its aesthetic elements, as a powerful reconciliation of art and life, it also serves as a warning to boaters. The area is popular for wintering manatees.
Baquero first developed his thoughts on art and the living 50 years ago. His further thoughts on the topic are in The Next Great
Migration: The Beginning Of How In The Anthropocene Epoch, a book he penned on cultural evolution. His manatee sculpture was a manifestation of his early thinking. “I began to incorporate the manatees as a barometer to, not only my work, but as an environmental barometer of what the world was doing,” he says.
No one in the arts has taken it far enough before to be able to see the role art can play in the environmental recovery of the planet.” —Tiité Baquero
“In my thesis, I knew if I’m going to learn about life, I needed to go outside of humanity, and I needed to find somebody and follow that life and see what is happening to that life in order to continue making that connection between art and life.”
When he finished the manatee monument in 1983, it became more than a beautiful sight. “It was the first environmental monument in the world,” Baquero says. “No one in the arts has taken it far enough before to be able to see the role art can play in the environmental recovery of the planet.”
Moreover, it was the first public art lighted by solar energy, he says. The monument by 1990 was the centerpiece of 12 such sentries warning boaters to be cautious. The project was called Earth Gallery One.
Beth Carter Bell was in high school when Baquero was busy with his manatee project. His work had great impact. “And from there, I formed an interest in manatees and even bought the [manatee] license plate, and I still wear manatee jewelry he [Baquero] made,” says Bell, who later became his live-in partner.
Baquero’s manatee work was inspired by Dr. Jesse White, a veterinarian at the Miami Seaquarium working with injured manatees. Romeo and Juliet, for instance, were among the first White studied.
Baquero’s sculpture portrayed Juliet as pregnant, which at the time surprised White because she wasn’t. “If anything is going in the right direction,” Baquero says, “the species needs to have babies to be able to move along with life.”
Shortly after the unveiling, Juliet indeed gave birth to the first captive-born manatee, whose embryonic tissue Baquero used to make his portrait of the newborn.
Baquero started the manatee project knowing that it should go beyond simple sensations of metal and sculpting. Ultimately, his work was the first step toward establishing a manatee alert, and the much deeper awareness of a precious life below the surface of everyday human awareness― that we are surrounded by a million other species that we should consider just as important as we do our own, he says.
Today the manatee sculpture still stands tall, though it needs new solar panels and a good wash. Unfortunately, limited funding is available, so it’s up to the community to step forward, he says. “In the history of art and history of human consciousness, that piece of art symbolizes the first time that our species actually went far enough to ask itself the question: ‘Am I a part of all of this, and are all of my ideas part of the world?’” Baquero says.
Baquero started the manatee project knowing that it should go beyond simple sensations of metal and sculpting.