Demented Art

If you have ever walked through central campus sometime at night than you may have at one time or another been shocked to stumble upon one of the darkest most disturbing creatures that have ever existed. As you walk cautiously past the dark, cloaked figure, your muggle heart pounds against your ribcage as you instinctively reach for the wand you know you don't have.  But wait... Muggles can't see dementors... so this must be... art?

Back when I had friends who lived on central campus (and not just acquaintances who beg me to buy them beer) I'd always ask them if they knew why UVM thought it was a good idea to place some of the most frightening statues I've ever seen right smack dab in the middle of the central green.  It remained a mystery and eventually as I moved off campus, I saw less and less of the demented structures and eventually they slipped from my memory.  That is until the other night.  I had been at the library for what seemed like forever when I realized that I had left one of my books at the Fleming.  Annoyed and frustrated I traversed the green in an attempt to save time (which by the way was not worth the sopping wet feet I had as a result of it).  As I strained my eyes to see the many puddles that flooded the green, I all of a sudden found my self face to face with this:

 As creepy as this thing is in broad daylight when I took this picture...now imagine it's pitch dark out.  It's relatively startling (to say the very least). Now, call me a loser but I love Harry Potter and I happen to be rereading the fifth book at the moment.  So (loser I am) for a split millisecond I thought about reaching for my 'wand'.  That is until I realized that 1. I have no wand 2. This is a statue and 3. My Harry Potter obsession is getting out of hand. Nonetheless, my encounter provoked me into finding out what the hell these statues were doing in the middle of our otherwise lovely college campus.

Unfortunately, not a living soul around here appears to know what these statues are or why they've been placed here.  For those of us who have been around the block, we remember a time when this  was the first thing you saw when you walked into the Davis Center (talk about startling).  But at some point in the last few years, it has been relocated to the central green.  After pestering countless students, museum workers, random people on the street and even my art teachers, not a soul could tell me why they are here.  The common response was, "I think they're supposed to be, like, art."
Nonetheless, I have not given up hope in my endeavor and am determined to figure out where these hellish creatures came from.  And while (as a student of art) I can appreciate the sculptor's beautiful attention to detail, particularly in the folds of the drapery, I just wish I could carry around a statue of my patronus.  You know, just in case.