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It's 'PandaMania' on D.C. streets

Summer art display will end with auction

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pandas look cute, but are they sex symbols?

They are when seen through the eyes of Maggie O'Neill.

She is one of several artists who won the privilege of decorating 150 giant plastic pandas prowling the streets of the nation's capital in this summer's "PandaMania" art exhibition.

O'Neill's contribution: a buxom, swimsuit-clad blonde named "Pandela Anderson."

"I thought it would be funny to make a panda, which is so cute and androgynous and cuddly creature, a total sexual being," she said, laughing. "Public artwork should be fun for the masses."

And there's more fun where that came from. On Monday, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities kicked off PandaMania by placing the 150 bamboo-munching bears at various locations around the district, from upscale to inner-city neighborhoods.

Many of the artists drew their inspiration from puns. There's a panda mockup of Groucho Marx called "Tibet Your Life."

But there's a serious side to PandaMania as well. One blue-and-green-splotched panda named "Miracle" reflects artist Cornelia Atchley's emotions about recovering from cancer.

"I felt happy and rich and like I had a new lease on life," she said. "And it was just feeling that came from way deep down, and I'm like, 'You're not done with me yet, you guys!' "

Making summertime 'bear-able'

The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities provided artists with blank pandas, studio space and a $1,500 honorarium. The exhibition winds up in September with Panda Palooza, where the city will auction off the pandas to raise money for artist's grants and education programs.

PandaMania is a follow-up to 2002's Party Animals festival, in which artists decorated plastic donkeys and elephants, the respective symbols of the Democratic and Republican parties. Mayor Anthony Williams says the auction that followed Party Animals raised more than $1 million.

"We're just a crazy city. We're into panda-monium," Williams said.

"A city without art would be a mistake. So that's why this is great," he added.

Artists hope the pandas will lift spirits and make Washington's sweltering summer months a little more "bear-able."

"It's through the message of beauty that we put a smile on people's faces, and then people have more encouragement to live a life, you know, to go to work every morning," panda-painter Karla Rodas said. "They're going to say, 'Wow! An artist put their heart and soul into this piece.' "

Posted by thinkum at May 11, 2004 04:43 PM