Whitman College has been invaded by ducks. Wooden ducks, that is.

As part of Whitman’s seventh annual Duckfest, participants are invited to create a piece of duck art to be placed around campus. Stevens Gallery curator
Shelby Blessing says the idea was drawn from other cities that showcased animal sculptures.

“The main idea behind it is to encourage as many community
members as possible to get involved with the gallery, and create art that can go all around campus,” said Blessing.

The Duckfest show differs from other Stevens Gallery shows because the art itself is not actually located in the gallery in Reid. In the gallery, viewers can find pictures of the art as well as maps with the names and locations of the art pieces.

Anyone is allowed to create a duck, including clubs, students, faculty and staff. Blessing said that most often, ducks are created by clubs. This year, the Campus Activities Board, the sorority Kappa Alpha Theta and the Co-Op all created ducks. Blessing said that it is common for first-years in residence halls to make them as a section and for professors and their families to do them together.

Margot Wielgus, another of the gallery’s curators, said her role in Duckfest involves passing out proposal forms to create a duck, purchasing wood and cutting it into duck shapes, distributing the duck forms and organizing the gallery presentation and maps.

Most participants paint on the wooden duck form directly, or add other materials to it in some way, but it is not required.

“We’ve had people take that wooden form before and chop it up and reconfigure
it in other ways,” said Blessing. “As long as it’s somehow a duck, it’s fine.”

Both Blessing and Wielgus’ favorite duck in the four years they have been curators did not involve the traditional duck form. The duck was “Duck and the Beanstalk,” created by the gallery committee, and “involved a very large wooden ogre duck in the tree on the west side of [Memorial] and a smaller Jack duck at the bottom,” said Wielgus.

Duckfest is well liked by the Whitman community, and honors the unusually high number of ducks running around campus.

“It also provides a reason for coming up with horrible duck puns, and those are always funny,” said Wielgus.

Some of the duck puns this year include “Quacketball Duck,” “Duck Tape,” “Friar Duck” and “You Quack Me Up.”

The concept of Duckfest is simple, but there are problems that arise, said Blessing.

“Sometimes the ducks get damaged, and especially during weekends when people are walking around inebriated on a Friday or Saturday night,” said Blessing.

“That’s when things tend to happen to the ducks.”

This year, rubber snakes that were draped on “Snakes on a Duck” were taken. Blessing said that fortunately, most of the snakes were found around campus and put back in place.

“I love Duckfest,” said sophomore Marty Skeels. “It makes me want to be a duck.”

“If readers are interested in doing this project, they should definitely watch for information each spring,” said Wielgus.