Ballerina Sculpture Comes Home to City Hall

Thanks to a generous donation from the family of a former Corvallis City Councilor, a sculpture with a special connection to downtown Corvallis has received a permanent home in the lobby of City Hall.

“The Spirit of Being” is a 10-inch-high bronze cast of a ballerina leaning forward in the dynamic arabesque position. Visitors will recognize the piece as a small-scale twin to a much larger, full-size outdoor installation that has graced Central Park, a few blocks away from City Hall, for 35 years.

The smaller ballerina sculpture was originally a gift from Grant E. Pyatt to his wife, Dorothy, in the 1980s. By that point, Pyatt was an elder statesman in Corvallis, having moved to town in 1929 from The Dalles. He left briefly to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, but by 1947 he was back in Corvallis.

Pyatt worked as a small business owner and investment banker in the intervening decades and still found time to serve terms on the City Council in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. In 1968, the City Council honored Pyatt with a resolution recognizing his generous public service to the community, through which “outstanding contributions were made in establishing policies affecting the progress of our municipality,” according to the resolution.

Local artist Raymond D. Hunter sculpted both ballerina statues. The smaller version of “The Spirit of Being” stayed with the Pyatt family, eventually making its way to Susan Fatzinger, daughter of Grant Pyatt, who donated the sculpture to the City of Corvallis. The sculpture is on display in the City Hall lobby with a commemorative plaque highlighting George and Dorothy Pyatt and the generous donation from their children.