When Does Art Become Graffiti ?

Some time ago I did a couple of posts "When Does Graffiti Become Art?"

This is the reverse. A piece of Art has been vandalised and basically destroyed.

It is a statue of Terry Fox. Who is Terry Fox?

Terry Fox was an athletic teenager who, when he was only 18 years old, was diagnosed with bone cancer and had his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977.

While in hospital, Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients, many of them young children, that he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.

He would call his journey the Marathon of Hope.

Terry trained for 18 months and running over 5,000 kilometres (over 3,10 miles) to prepare.

Terry started his run in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980. It was difficult to get much attention in the beginning, enthusiasm soon grew, and the money collected along his route began to mount. He ran 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day through Canada's Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario.

The Marathon of Hope was a journey that Canadians will never forgot.

Unfortunately, on September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to take a break from his Marathon of Hope just outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. An entire nation was stunned and saddened. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at age 22. Canadians wept.

I said that Terry was forced to take a break from his Marathon of Hope because, although he was gone, his legacy was just beginning. Every September multitudes of Canadians pick up where he left off and continue the race for a day.

To date, more than $360 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry's name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world.

It will cost approximately $30,000 to replace the bronze statue which cannot be repaired.