Manitou goddess becomes omnipresent

MANITOU SPRINGS • Check out the hot new deity divas in town.

Fifteen Hebes have staked out spots along Manitou Avenue, dressed in their glitzy, garish and psychedelic best.

The Hebe parade celebrates the town’s cultural and quirky heritage.

Hebe (pronounced HEE-bee) is the Greek mythology goddess of eternal youth, best known for serving up pitchers of ambrosia to Olympian gods, often while topless.

However, these Hebe statues are concrete replicas of the fully clothed goddess atop the town clock.

She was formerly known as Hygeia, after being misidentified for almost 120 years. It was an honest mistake to dub her Hygeia, goddess of health and daughter of healing god Asclepius, when mineral water bottling magnate Jerome Wheeler gave the statue to the town in 1890.

Nobody questioned it, until earlier this year after Manitou historian Deborah Harrison was museum hopping in Europe and stumbled upon a dead-ringer statue named Hebe.

Uh-oh.

But this is Manitou. Rather than hide the mistaken identity, townsfolk are flaunting it.

Actually, “It’s a step up,” Harrison said. Hebe is the daughter of kingpin god Zeus.

This weekend’s goddess invasion kicks off “Your Personal Goddess: A Celebration of Hebe,” which will lead to who-knows-how-much fanfare.

The 40-inch-tall, 150-pound Hebe statues were decorated by artists as a fundraiser and for fun in cooperation with the Manitou Springs Arts Council.

Sponsors paid $250 a Hebe. Artists received $100 for supplies to doll up Hebe in whatever way their imaginations desired.

All kept her clothed, some totally. “Disco Hebe” is completely covered in glitter ball glass. “Manitou Mom” is a redhead with cool shades and a smiley faced pitcher. “Manitou Muses” uses Hebe’s curves as a canvas.

The statues will be on display until September, then sold on what Harrison calls “HebeBay” to the highest bidder. Bids actually will be taken via e-mail through the Manitou Springs Web site, manitouspringsheritagecenter.org.

The goal is for each statue to fetch $500-$1,000. The artist gets 20 percent and the rest goes to the Building Purchase Fund of Historic Manitou Springs, Inc.

“It took an extraordinary amount of time,” said “Disco Hebe” creator Lisa Cross, who cast bad luck demons aside to shatter a mirror for the sake of her art. “I’m hoping somebody will give her a good home.”

The mirrored look symbolizes the vanity that goes along this goddess who is an icon of youth, who “look in the mirror a lot,” Cross said.

Look no deeper than the surface for any meaning into this project as a whole. Harrison stressed there are no religious or anti-religious connotations.

“We are worshiping the Hebes as works of art,” she said. “Nobody is worshiping them as gods.”

The town’s public service department supplied the manpower to anchor the statues in concrete, lest any Hebe rip-off artists get any ideas.

Tourist Carol Dewar said she’d love to take a Hebe home to the Midwest.

“In Missouri, we have painted cows,” she said.

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Call the writer at 636-0253.

View Hebe statues in Manitou Springs in a larger map

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