The TPA Newsboy has come to life.

It’s been seven months since the TPA Board of Directors gave the go-ahead to create a life-size bronze statue Newsboy planned as part of the commemoration of the association’s 125 years of serving Texas newspapers.

Houston sculptor Bridgette Mongeon has finished the life-size Newsboy that TPA hopes to unveil in May in time for the association’s founding date of May 19, 1880. The permanent location of the statue is still being finalized.

Mongeon also has completed a limited edition small bronze Newsboy sculpture that was unveiled at the TPA Midwinter Conference in Dallas in January. Only 100 of these bronzes will be made and they are available for purchase. The size is approximately 12 inches including a wooden base. The small Newsboy is a replica of the life-size sculpture.

The cost for the small limited edition bronze is $1,350. To order log onto the sculpture page.

Mongeon has maintained a Weblog throughout the project, documenting the creation of the Newsboy every step of the way. View her entries at www.creativesculpture.com/texaspress.html.

In the most recent entry Jan. 22-29 she wraps up how the project started and where the Newsboy stands today.

“Looking back over the journal of this project, it has been almost three months since the start of the life-size newsboy. I began the life-size sculpture on Nov. 8, 2004 and it is now six months since the beginning of the project August 2004,” Mongeon wrote.

The weeks between August and November were spent on research, finding a pose, learning about clothing of the period, finding an original pattern and sewing an outfit, finalizing photos for reference, and creating the small newsboy sculpture in bronze.

“It is wonderful to see the sculpture in such a state of completion. Although it is said, ‘artwork is never finished, only abandoned,’” she wrote.

Mongeon’s first step was researching newsboys and finding a subject for the statue. She chose 11-year-old Houstonian Dustin Lee, the son of a friend. The latest Weblog entry has photos of Dustin meeting his life-size bronze model.

“It was so much fun to have Dusty come in and meet the sculpture in person,” Mongeon wrote.

The TPA Newsboy is the second newspaper-industry sculpture Mongeon has undertaken. She also was contracted to create the Houston Chronicle’s Jesse Award.