In Norton, Panther pride is larger than life, thanks to a sculpture by local artist Virgil Villers installed at the new high school.
The sleek black panther crouching atop a stone arch is meant to show gratitude, pride and most of all hope for the future, said Villers, a Norton graduate who taught art at the middle school for 30 years.
“Like the beast above this arch, a panther, frozen in a watchful, guarded pose, we hope to guide you and protect you into that future,” Villers told students at the sculpture’s dedication last month. “When you pass by or under this work, I hope you will remember that.”
The panther is the finishing touch on the school, set to open for students when classes resume next week. The community is invited to tour the school Sunday at an open house.
“To be a part of this new school and new stadium ... everything is brand new,” Villers said Thursday by phone from Florida, where he and his wife, Judy, spend the winters. “I work all over the country, but I’ve never had a major piece in Norton other than a library piece. This is the first major piece. I was so thrilled, because I am so much about Norton.”
Villers’ ties to Norton run deep. His wife taught business in the district, and his children attended Norton schools. The piece at the library is a doglike creature that greets people when they come in. Villers used his Doberman as the model, but the sculpture is much bigger, greeting children like a watchdog.
Some of Villers’ other whimsical works can be seen throughout the area. Circle of Friends, an elephant, giraffe and hippo holding hands with their feet together, leaning back, stands outside Akron Children’s Hospital. Villers also recently installed Story Time of Super Hippo at Hattie Larlham, which features a giraffe holding a cape-wearing baby hippo and reading her a story about Super Hippo, who is getting ready to fly and fight a dragon. Both pieces are done in bright oranges, blues and greens.
The Prowling Panther at the high school evokes power.
“We wanted a gateway as you are coming out of the high school and it would lead right into the stadium visually,” Villers said. “Yes, it’s a mascot for the school, but it’s much more than that. It’s like a passageway into Panther Country.”
The 6-foot-long panther is made of three layers of half-inch plate steel, Villers said, and weighs 2,000 pounds. It measures 20 feet high on the base. Cranes that were on-site from the school’s construction were used to install it. The panther has been coated in offshore rigging black gloss paint with silver edging on the paws and teeth.
“It’s quite a challenge to make plain steel interesting,” Villers said. “I knew we’d be looking up at it, so I wanted the sky as a canvas. I wanted all these piercings. You see all these delicate lines that entail the eyes, or the anatomy of the sculpture. ... I played with the anatomy some, made the rib cage more playful or more modified.”
Sculpture takes shape
The Panther Project came to be when the Kiwanis Club of Norton wanted to do something for the students, said Jo Seymour, past president and the project’s committee chair. The group knew it wanted to incorporate a panther but wasn’t sure how.
Villers started doing sketches and making little models and met with the Kiwanis Club for brainstorming. At first the sculpture was going to be inside the school, but it would have been too crowded in the foyer.
“I wanted to make a prowling cat,” Villers said. “I didn’t want it just standing there. I wanted it creeping down this plane, almost like an arch, big enough to walk under.”
Villers, who went to Kent State for a bachelor’s degree in teaching, a master’s in sculpture and a Master of Fine Arts to teach at the college level, made cutouts in foam core, three-dimensional models that represent each layer of steel. When it was the way he wanted, it was taken apart and scanned, then a program told a computer-aided design cutter how the metal should be cut. The program cut out half-inch plates, and then the welding began.
There are more than 100 parts: claws, teeth, rib caging, edging. Everything has multiple layers of edging so it reflects light, Villers said.
The panther was done at a fabricator in Akron. The whole process, from design to installation, took a year, Villers said.
The company that built the school, C.T. Taylor Construction, run by Norton graduates Mike Cooper and Matt Collier, made and donated the stone archway, which was designed by MKC Associates. The panther was sandblasted and painted by E.L. Stone Co.
Seymour said support in the community was strong and that the Kiwanis Club met its fundraising goal for the project six months early, thanks in part to a member who made a matching donation. The fundraising goal wasn’t publicly released.
“The statue looks great, and we are so blessed to have an artist of Virgil Villers’ ability in our community,” Norton Principal Ryan Shanor said. “Norton Kiwanis did such a great job supporting this endeavor, and I can’t say enough good things about how cool that panther looks out in front of our building. It’s a perfect finishing touch to our beautiful new school.”
Monica L. Thomas can be reached at 330-996-3827 or mthomas@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @MLThomasABJ and https://www.facebook.com/MLThomasABJ.