Great Turtle Chase’s conservation now complete
On October 1st, Chris-Tel Construction and Miami-based art conservators Rosa Lowinger & Associates began conservation of The Great Turtle Chase, a statue of an infant chasing a turtle that sits at the foot of the brick wall that marks the entrance to Centennial Park East. Work has now been completed, and both the sculpture and the wall have been returned to their original condition.
Commissioned by 
Fort Myers’ Beautification Advisory Board, the sculpture was cast and installed by D.J. Wilkins, who former mayor Art Hammel once proclaimed as “the official sculptor of Fort Myers” because of the numerous (23) representational sculpture he has created for the city over the years.
“When we built the Centennial Park sign, I was looking for a symbol to represent the change of centuries 
and settled on this,” Wilkins reports. The baby symbolizes the new century coming in and the turtle represents the old, outgoing century.”
When it came time to cast the infant, Wilkins decided to use his daughter, Elizabeth, as the muse. Today, Elizabeth is still chasing turtles. Working for the fourth largest engineering firm in the world, her field work often involves surveying potential construction sites for burrowing owls and gopher tortoises and finding the later homes in protected habitats.
Originally dedicated in 1990, 
the sculpture had fallen into disrepair of late. The baby’s lower right leg had been broken off and was missing, as were all but the big toe on the toddler’s left foot. Several of the numbers in the dates on the wall were also missing, and the mortar needed a tuck-and-point and power washing.
Work is also underway to add The Great Turtle Chase to the City’s free phone app. Called Otocast, the app provides residents and visitors with technical information, historical photos, behind-the-scenes stories and other 
information about the public artworks they encounter throughout the City of Fort Myers. The centerpiece of the app is an audio recording that users can listen to while standing in front of the artwork they’re interested in learning more about.
Rosa Lowinger & Associates specializes in the conservation of built heritage, a term that encompasses art, architecture, museum collections, and public spaces. Rosa 
Lowinger is a recognized international expert in conservation and a specialist in modern and contemporary sculpture, architecture, and public art. She has been in private practice since 1988. Each of the company’s senior staff has been in practice for no less than 5 years and as a team, RLA has a combination of 50 years of experience carrying out conservation, cultural resource documentation, restoration, and 
historic remediation projects for architecture, public art, and sculpture in stone, masonry, concrete, metals, ceramic tile, terracotta, wood, plastic, plaster, terrazzo, linoleum and mosaics.
The Great Turtle Chase and each of the City’s other 69 public artworks are administered by a 9-member Public Art Committee (which consists of 7 
voting members and 2 alternates) that was established by an ordinance that was adopted by the City Council in 2004. Members serve for three year terms, are not compensated, and must either be a resident of the city, work in the city, or be a member of an arts board or committee that is located in the city. The Public Art Committee oversees the commissioning, review, installation and maintenance 
of public art within the City. It meets in public session in City Council chambers on the third Tuesday of each month. Its next meeting is November 20.
November 18, 2018.
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About the Author
Tom Hall is both an amateur artist and aspiring novelist who writes art quest thrillers. He is in the final stages of completing his debut novel titled "Art Detective," a story that fictionalizes the discovery of the fabled billion-dollar Impressionist collection of Parisian art dealer Josse Bernheim-Jeune, thought by many to have perished during World War II when the collection's hiding place, Castle de Rastignac in southern France, was destroyed by the Wehrmacht in reprisal for attacks made by members of the Resistance operating in the area. A former tax attorney, Tom holds a bachelor's degree as well as both a juris doctorate and masters of laws in taxation from the University of Florida. Tom lives in Estero, Florida with his fiancee, Connie, and their four cats.