Employees from the Lyric Theater in Blacksburg noticed on Monday that the bronze frog named Oscar had been taken from its rain garden near in front of the business. He is one of 16 bronze frogs that comprise a public art display installed in 2016 as an environmental education effort reflecting Blacksburg’s history and its long relationship with water.
Oscar lived quietly in the reeds and native wildflowers of a sidewalk rain garden outside of the Lyric Theater in downtown Blacksburg.
Nobody remembers when they saw him last; but on Monday, he was gone, pried from his bronze lily pad.
Oscar, named by the Lyric for the theatrical award, is one of 16 bronze frogs that comprise a public art display installed in 2016 as an environmental education effort reflecting Blacksburg’s history and its long relationship with water.
“Oscar was the first one installed,” Laureen Blakemore director of Downtown Blacksburg Inc. the organization that launched the 16 Frog project, said. “We are all saddened.”
“Sixteen” reflects the 16 historic blocks of the town of Blacksburg, and each frog is modeled on and celebrates the native green frog (Rana clamitans).
The pieces were created by local artist Christine Kosiba now in Asheville, North Carolina who forged them from bronze at one and a half times a frog’s original size, realistically detailing their balletic sinewy leg muscles and big, pancakey ear membranes on the sides of their heads.
Because green frogs live in shallow freshwater ponds, road-side ditches, lakes, swamps, streams and brooks, the sixteen statuettes scattered about town are found in and near the garden fountains, natural springs and rain gardens of landmark sites like the Alexander Black House, St. Luke and Odd Fellows Hall, Five-Chimneys, Margaret Beeks Elementary and on the little knee wall marking Spout Spring on Main Street.
Although a frog is a playful image, the object is a work of art and its theft, which must have taken some effort, since the installations involved cement, epoxy and rebar, is serious.
The frogs are worth $600 apiece, and according to Blakemore, the Blacksburg Police confirmed that the theft of anything of over a $200 value is a felony.
“Not just a fun prank, they’re bronze, and expensive,” Blakemore said. “But, we would be happy if he just mysteriously reappeared.”