Chautauqua Star July 11, 2014

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Your Weekly Community Magazine

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Week of July 11, 2014

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Vol. 7, No. 28 – FREE

A ‘giant’ Restoration

www.classifiedsonus.com

discover new postings from around the area or post one of your own for others to find.

WORLD-REnOWnED SCuLPTOR RETuRnS TO DunkIRk TO RESTORE HISTORICAL STATuE STORER’S CONTAINER SERVICE COMMERICAL, SMALL BUSINESS & RESIDENTIAL SERVICES

By Scott Wise Editor

In 1971, Peter Wolf Toth sculpted a giant Native American head out of a stone cliff in La Jolla, California. Since then, he has found it his personal mission to travel around the world, sculpting what he calls work that “honors the human spirit in bondage.” He has traveled across the United States and into Europe, creating giant monuments (usually 20 to 40 feet tall) that “chronicle the epic struggle of all men facing injustice, inhumanity and tyranny.” “Everyone has their mission in life,” said Toth. “Some dress in ties and go door to door, I build these statues in honor of all oppressed peoples.” Toth, who was born in Hungary in 1947, lived an early life of oppression at the hands of the Communist regime in Eastern Europe. As one of 11 children, his parents left Hungary after the government usurped the family’s land and prized peach trees. Landing fi rst in Austria, then eventually Germany, they made their way to fi nally reach the United States, eventually fi nding a home in Akron, Ohio. “People often ask me if I speak English, because I

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created these statues and I’m his services. The rest, as they from Hungary,” Toth said, say, is history. with a subtle smirk. “I think Toth has donated each and I learned English pretty every one of his sculptures well, having grown up in the to the states and countries Midwestern Unites States.” where he builds them. A In 1973, Toth visited small brochure nearby his Dunkirk with the mission of work calls it “a dream and creating what became New personal mission to create York State’s only ‘Whisper[these] gifts.” ing Giant.’ The story goes that the then CALL US FOR YOUR NEXT mayor of Dunkirk, and his wife, were on HOME IMPROVEMENT PROJECT vacation, when she saw Toth and one of his sculptures. Recognizing the tremendous story it held, she knew it would WE’VE GOT YOU COVERED! be a sound addition 38 TEMPLE ST., FREDONIA 679.0300 to Dunkirk’s water332 FLUVANNA AVE., JAMESTOWN 338.0300 front, and enlisted DFTCOMMUNICATIONS.COM/ELECTRICAL

Now, Toth has returned to Dunkirk this month after a long-sought mission by the city and business owners to restore the ailing statue. 40 years of wind, rain, snow and ice have caused much of the wood inside to rot, and its stability was compromised. ContinueD on Pg 2

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