"Certainly these sorts of carvings can be quite attractive in their own way, but they should not be on residential streets," said Eleanor Silk, who this week had her daughter present a case against the carvings to councillors.

"We're not happy about it because there's going to be a lot of people standing and gawking and we won't have the kind of privacy we want. Beyond that, our main concern is safety. We have a stop sign on our corner and people may not be paying attention to their driving because they're looking at the carvings or they'll be stopping in front our house all of the time wanting to take pictures."

The tops of the three maples were lopped off last fall by Hydro crews because they were interfering with power lines along the street. Earlier this month, South Bruce Peninsula town crews chopped the trees down, leaving three stumps roughly 2.5 metres high in preparation for chainsaw artist Bobbi Switzer to transform them.

Switzer, who was asked by the town last spring if she would be willing to create the 10 carvings, said yesterday she is surprised by the negative attention her work is getting, saying she has never encountered opposition to her art before.

True, the Town might have asked but it would only be as a favour, as an added gift. I don't recall Toronto Transit asking before deploying the marvelous artwork outside the Spadina-line stations, and I'm nearly certain the placement of the (ahem) graphically endowed gift steed in the centre of their Queen's Park wasn't approved by any resident, that's just the nature of governmental lands. Heck, half the town names in this county were chosen inspite of citizen consensus to the contrary! The choices of humble historic vignettes for Wiarton is brilliant and unobtrusive, a magical new life breathed into these unfortunate trees.

"Stopping in front of our house all the time' -- give me a break! With friendly attitudes like this, Wiarton should be so lucky as to have people willing to stop in it at all. What's next? Banning patio gardens on the fear that it may cause photographers to invade their secret lives? Banning flat rooftops for fear Google might publish an improper map image?

C'mon. I think O'Gawdabout owes Bobbi an apology, as do all the others that pushed this story into to the eager talons of the always inflammatory Sun-Times, and maybe instead of an instinct to diss on a gift like this, they should thank Gwen and the council for their foresight and utopian thinking. Oh, and then maybe put forth a few suggestions for the vignette they'd prefer to ghost their curbside.

And to Bobbi and Council, since the tomcats are already out of the bag on this one, here's a suggestion: instead of giants, could it work to make these portraits life sized? One of my most memorable moments in all of my travels through Europe was my discovery of The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbour, simply sitting there, seated on the sea-side rocks, gazing out, awaiting her love, no pedestal, no marker, no plaque of credits. Just there, just so, nothing special.