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[i]North Carolina artist and Ligonier native Chas Fagan, 40, recently was granted a $150,000 commission to create a bronze statue of American astronaut Neil Armstrong for Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. The larger-than-life statue of Armstrong as a young man will be placed at the entrance of the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering, a 210,000-square-foot building being constructed on the northeast corner of Purdue's campus at a cost of more than $51 million. ...Fagan's piece, which will be placed at the building's entrance under a dramatic cantilevered canopy, is to be unveiled during Purdue's June 30 "victory celebration" marking the completion of the successful Campaign for Purdue — a $1.5 billion fundraising campaign. There is no word as of yet as to whether Armstrong will be available for the statue's unveiling. ...the concept, Fagan says by telephone from his studio in Charlotte, N.C., is to show Armstrong during his student years at Purdue in the 1950s. That explains why the completed 8-foot-tall figure will be set on a stone plinth and depicted with legs dangling. "This casual pose will hopefully invite students to hop up and join him between classes or on sunny days," Fagan says. "Fittingly, Armstrong has a student-like demeanor in his era — appropriate windbreaker jacket and khaki pants, and he has the requisite notebook, textbook and slide-rule at his side." As Fagan tells it, he envisions the figure of Armstrong gazing out to the main campus walkway, toward a line of footprints — actually stone moon-boot prints — in the nearby grass. This, says the artist, would evoke Armstrong's transition from student to astronaut.[/i]
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