Lawrence ? First there were cows and then pigs. Add some horses, lobsters and mermaids, and soon you have the latest craze in public art.

Fiberglass figures in various sizes, shapes and species have grown in popularity across the country in recent years. Generally, they’re displayed for a few months and then auctioned, often with the proceeds going to charity.

The fad started in 1998 in Zurich, Switzerland, with fancy festooned cows. The idea leapfrogged the Atlantic, and the following year, Chicago had Cows on Parade.

Since then there’s been pigs in Cincinnati; horses in Lexington, Ky., lobsters in Rockland, Maine, and mermaids in Norfolk, Va., to name a few.

“It’s a trend, a fad, a gimmick,” said Jack Becker, artistic director for Forecast Public Artworks in St. Paul, Minn., and publisher of Public Art Review, the only magazine devoted solely to public art.

“I think it will be around awhile, but I think it will run its course, and hopefully it will inspire more innovative projects,” he said.

He estimated at least 40 cities have displayed fiberglass figures, and there appears to be no end in sight. Already this year, there are plans for Atlanta cows and Albuquerque horses.

Now, Lawrence has joined the fiberglass festival with one called “Jayhawks on Parade.”

It will have 32 variously decorated Jayhawks — the university’s mythical mascot — dotting the city from mid-April to mid-November.

“It’s not an original idea, but what is most attractive is we are using a figure no other community can do,” said Susan Henderson, of the sponsoring Lawrence Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Artist Mike Savage paints a panoramic scene depicting Lawrence on a fiberglass Jayhawk as he works in his Westwood studio. Savage is one several artists decorating one of 32 Kansas University mascots for an outdoor art project in Lawrence.

Each 5-foot figure has a sponsor who paid $4,500 to cover the costs of the bird and the $1,000 for the artist selected based on a proposed design.

At the end of the showing, each sponsor either will keep the Jayhawk or donate it to a nonprofit group that can auction it to raise money.

“Our goal was to spread the wealth, and this was a way we could make it happen,” Henderson said. “It also will be an attraction to bring more visitors to our city.”

The artists are limited only by their imaginations when it comes to creating their Jayhawk, which arrived as a primer-gray fiberglass form.

When Westwood artist Mike Savage picked up his Jayhawk recently, he had a quick answer about why.

“I love KU and that kind of says it all,” said Savage, a 1980 graduate of the university. “It was a great time. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Savage said his work, “A Hawk with a View,” would feature a landscape of Lawrence and will be displayed in front of the sponsoring steak house.

This isn’t Savage’s first fiberglass artwork. He did similar work on cows and oversized teddy bears displayed in Kansas City, Mo.

“The fun part is getting a flat dimensional work on a three-dimensional piece,” he said. “So I’m trying to take the same way I paint and put it on this.”

Becker said such projects gave artists a chance “to test the waters and try new things” and gives the public a chance to see new ideas.

He said some efforts around the country had been “artistically marginal.”

“This isn’t attracting the big-time public artists,” he said. “But there have been good versions of this program.”

He cited the 2001 collection of human figures in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, fashioned after Grant Wood’s American Gothic painting.

“They had fun with it, and it was open to a lot of different interpretations and humor was a large part of it,” Becker said.