{"id":217412,"date":"2025-09-11T05:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T05:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/217412\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T05:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T05:42:09","slug":"new-sculpture-sparks-controversy-in-fruita","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/217412\/","title":{"rendered":"New sculpture sparks controversy in Fruita"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) &#8211; On September 2, we reported that Fruita received <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kkco11news.com\/2025\/09\/03\/i-think-it-just-adds-ambiance-fruita-adds-5-new-sculptures-its-downtown\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">five new art sculptures<\/a> for its downtown area. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Following the installation of the sculptures, residents have spoken up about their disapproval. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">One sculpture, created by local artist Pavia Justinian, depicts a colorful naked female body. Justinian says the sculpture is meant to represent strength and grace, and the name of the sculpture, <a href=\"https:\/\/paviajustinian.com\/zafira\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zafira<\/a> means succesful in Arabic. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI didn\u2019t really intend for that to be a controversial thing. I sculpted a female figure, and she\u2019s anatomically correct,\u201d said Justinian, \u201cI really hope that the city stands up for free speech, I hope Zahira gets to stay and spread joy to the community, I think she\u2019s a joyful piece.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Fruita was supposed to host an art walk on September 10, with the artists of the new sculptures, but the event was postponed due to the recent controversy. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cTonight will be an arts and culture meeting at the public works facility. That will be their first chance to interact with the community and a chance for them to listen,\u201d said Dan Caris, Fruita Assistant City Manager. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">City officials say there\u2019s a chance this meeting could result in the removal of the sculpture. <\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 KKCO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) &#8211; On September 2, we reported that Fruita received five new art sculptures for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":217413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1037,648,12043,1032,4439,118756,1033,171,118750,118751,118767,118755,118761,118759,118760,118752,118763,118762,118765,118757,118753,118764,1038,118758,67,132,68,118766,118754],"class_list":{"0":"post-217412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-culture","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-colorado","13":"tag-dan-caris","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-fruita","17":"tag-fruita-art","18":"tag-fruita-art-work","19":"tag-fruita-assistant-city-manager","20":"tag-fruita-colorado","21":"tag-fruita-controversy","22":"tag-fruita-facebook","23":"tag-fruita-officials","24":"tag-kjct","25":"tag-kkco","26":"tag-mesa-county-art","27":"tag-naked-sculpture","28":"tag-pavia-justinian","29":"tag-public-works-facility","30":"tag-sculpture","31":"tag-sculpture-of-david","32":"tag-united-states","33":"tag-unitedstates","34":"tag-us","35":"tag-western-slope-art","36":"tag-zafira"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115184071092698503","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}