The statue outside of the chemistry lab.

I honestly just now figured out what the subject of this statue is while photographing it.

For my entire first year at Clemson I thought that this was just a randomly placed abstract statue. First it seemed to be shaped like some kind of dancer. Later and from different angles the statue looked like some sort of deer (I always thought of Rudolph). This is supported by the statue having four "legs" and the protrusion from the top kind of looks like antlers.

 



Now I realized by looking at its surroundings, the chemistry lab, that this statue is not of a deer but of a microscope. The "antlers become the eyepiece, the "legs" become the base, and finally Rudolf's big nose is the objective lens. A microscope is a commonly used symbol for science and by creating an abstract version of an important aspect of science the artist has conveyed two different messages. Science can be beautiful, and different people can "see" things in different ways.