"Pigment of Our Imagination" (foreground) and "Hamlite" will soon be on the auction block. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

        Tristate artists who had labored long in obscurity are being recognized.

        Designated charities by the dozens are waiting to share the wealth of licensing and auctions.

        Downtown merchants — some of them at least — are as happy as pigs in a puddle.

        Or would that be pigs in a blanket? Or pigs in the most successful public art exhibit in the country?

        Cincinnati's Big Pig Gig, by many measures is truly big, with truly big impact.

PORCINE EXPOSURE

In addition to the 177 pigs you have seen in daily Enquirer Pig Parade profiles, fiberglass pigs and the umbrella Big Pig Gig celebration have been showcased by:  • ABC's Good Morning America.  • CBS Sunday Morning.  • USA Today's Web Site of the Day.  • America Online's Front Page.  • The Weather Channel.  • The NFL Today Sports Wrapup.   Organizers estimate that combined broadcast, Internet and print pig features have reached 30 million people in at least 75 metropolitan markets.   So far.

        As the Gig begins herding pigs off the streets today, the city can claim this: The exhibit has generated more corporate sponsorships, artist participation and public reaction than any American city sponsoring outdoor art exhibits thus far — including fancy likenesses of horses, moose and lizards. Only New York City managed to sell more works of art (500 cows) to sponsors.

        “Bar none, we are the most successful,” Tamara Harkavy, executive director of the Gig, says with glee.

        Among cities nationwide, the Queen City's pig event has become a model.

        For artists, corporate sponsors, charities and the public at large, “It's a win, win ... win, win, win situation,” Ms. Harkavy says. “These pigs have worked so hard for us all summer.”

        And now they can rest. Starting today, Cincinnati's much loved pigs are retiring and leaving their exhibit spots on sidewalks and in building lobbies in Cincinnati, Covington and Newport.

        ArtWorks, the project coordinator, will be rounding up 420 painted, rebuilt and otherwise adorned pigs for the next two weeks in preparation for a Nov. 13 live auction at Music Hall. Some pigs will be sold on the Internet. Still others will be held by their sponsors.

        At $200 and $300 minimum bids, the 235 pigs going to auction will deliver at least $58,750, assuming they all sell. But one cow alone in Chicago brought nearly twice that much at an auction that pulled in $3.5 million. So local organizers don't know what to expect.
       

Downtown shops prosper
               Already, the project has pulled in more than $1.2 million in corporate sponsorships, most of which has been and will be used to buy pigs and pay operating costs.

        A side effect has been a downtown business boom.

        Joe Patrika, general manager at Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery on Fountain Square, said business has been up by $75,000 to $100,000 a month since the Gig began.

        “It's been wonderful for me,” said Boris Litwin Jewelry owner B.J. Foreman. “I can't wait 'til they cook up their next plan.”

        Ms. Foreman said she had not seen such a downtown influx of suburban customers since she took over the Race Street store four years ago.

        Men, women and children forked over as much as $1,000 for a gold pig pin and as little as $5 for a deck of pig cards. In between, there were earrings, pendants and Christmas tree ornaments.

        After the Happy Pig Collectors Club swept through town for its annual convention in July, “I had to reorder everything,” Ms. Foreman said.

        Already, “There are good things happening around the pigs,” said Betsy Neyer, Gig marketing director. Among them:

        • Glass Hand, the company that makes the bare fiberglass pig forms, reports a 100 percent boost in revenues, to $400,000.

        • Consumers have bought nearly 25,000 copies of Celebrating Pigs in the City, the collector's book.

        • Sales of disposable cameras doubled at Jack's Camera Shop, downtown.

        • Downtown restaurants report solid increases — 5 to 20 percent — in business and attribute them to the exhibit.

        • Volunteers sold more than $250,000 worth of T-shirts, stuffed pigs, ornaments, shot glasses, posters and statues, most of which was produced locally.

        • 143 local nonprofit organizations are in line to share the proceeds from the online and live pig auctions next month.

        • The Greater Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau gets 15 to 20 calls a day about the pigs.

        • The official Big Pig Gig web site averages 4 million hits a month from 100,000 visitors.
       

City sets example
               Big Pig Gig administrators estimate that at least 30 million people in 75 cities have heard about the project from newspapers, broadcasts and the Internet. They get two to three calls a week from event organizers in other cities, looking for advice.

        This week, Ms. Harkavy and Ms. Neyer will meet with about a dozen community leaders in Traverse City, Mich., to help them plan a public art event.

        On Friday, they met with Sally Davies, executive director of the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo.

        “The success of the cows in Chicago prompted a lot of communities to look into similar projects,” Ms. Davies said. “When you have one so successful within your own state, it's a natural fit to see what's worked well.”

        In May, the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Cincinnati and Partnership for Greater Cincinnati released results of a study that predicted a $170 million boost to the local economy, thanks primarily to the art exhibit.

        The Gig, the report said, would draw about 500,000 out-of-town visitors who would spend about $82 million in hotels, restaurants and shops.

        Chamber officials believe the predictions are coming true.

        “I think everybody has seen more people downtown,” said the chamber's Joe Kramer, vice president for economic development. And “It's clear retail sales are up where shops are close to the pigs. We just don't know for sure how much yet. ... They (the pigs) clearly have had their effect on more people downtown and, undoubtably, more from out of town, which is the key to economic development.”

Artists become stars
               Artists are getting recognition too.

        “I've been getting much, much more exposure,” said Hartwell artist Brian Joiner. “I get phone calls all the time from people I never met before, telling me how much they like my pig,” the upside-down, Pig Dreams I.

        Tony Becker, an Anderson Township artist who created his own pig form with an e-commerce theme (e-piggy.com), said he has gotten several complimentary phone calls from people who enjoyed his contribution.

        “I enjoyed doing it,” Mr. Joiner said.

        And the public will enjoy his pig, and others, for a long time, Ms. Harkavy predicts.

        “Some day, some of those pigs will be in museums,” she said.

Pigs attract crowds
               “I haven't seen this kind of foot traffic downtown since the (Cincinnati Reds) Big Red Machine was in its prime” in the 1970s, said Raymond “Buz” Buse III, public relations manager for the chamber.

        Girl Scout leader Sabina Flaska, of Kenwood, said the pig exhibit was the perfect highlight of a recent outing for six sixth-graders in Troop 4775.

        “They really got a kick out of it,” she said. “There was quite a ruckus around several of the pigs — a lot of screaming and squealing.” None from the pigs.

        The scouts visited pigs at Museum Center, downtown Cincinnati and along the riverfront in Covington.

        “Sometimes you have to be creative to hold their attention,” Ms. Flaska said. Big Pig Gig did the job.

        Denise Krallman, who organized a summer Cincinnati convention of the Association for Institutional Research, said participants were especially pleased with pig art and the chance to compete in a pig photo contest she devised.

        “They had a blast,” she said. “They really did.”

        Ms. Krallman, assistant director of institutional research at Miami University, Oxford, said the conference got superior satisfaction ratings, “hopefully part of it for the local arrangements,” including the pigs.

        “Everyone had a good time.”

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