Draped statues spark media interest, boost sales

Several weeks ago, Angie Langford and Pam Gregory draped the nude female statues at their garden supply store in red velvet sarongs after a customer complained that the partially clothed concrete yard art revealed a little too much.

After news stories about the covered-up statues appeared around the world, sales are up at G & L Garden Center.

“It’s unreal,” Langford said. “People here are so tickled.”

A customer from Massapequa, N.Y., saw a photo of the statues in The New York Times and had to have one. His concrete beauty will be shipped this week, and the delivery charge will be about twice the cost of the $150 statue.

“It’s a bargain,” said Bob Ackerberg, a retired chemical engineering professor. “They’re nice — very artistic.”

Ackerberg said he and his companion plan to display the statue — minus its bikini — in their living room.

The story, which first ran in The Tennessean, was picked up by The Associated Press and has since appeared in newspapers around the country and in India, South Africa, Canada and Australia. Britain’s BBC and morning radio shows in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have interviewed the sisters about their statues.

Before the female statues stirred up a minor controversy, G&L ordered some male companions: concrete replicas of Michelangelo’s David.

The David statues now have arrived in Hartsville, a town of about 3,500 residents 40 miles northeast of Nashville, and adapted to local standards for modesty. They’re wearing crimson velvet loincloths.

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Information from: The Tennessean, http://www.tennessean.com