Bear (Tim Hawkinson) 23-foot granite UCSD

A teddy bear built of eight granite boulders stands 23 feet 6 inches tall in an engineering courtyard at the University of California San Diego. Bear is by Tim Hawkinson and is the 16th work in the university's Stuart Collection of site-specific sculpture; a 2005 university release called it his first permanent outdoor public project.

The idea began, according to that release, when Hawkinson stacked pebbles in his back yard into the shape of a cuddly teddy bear. For the campus he imagined a bear of boulders: torso, head, ears, arms and legs. The Stuart Collection says they were found locally; the 2005 release says he chose them from a quarry in Pala, about 60 miles north of San Diego. The largest, the torso, measured about 16 by 17 feet and weighed more than 100 tons, and the release said it would be moved at night with a police escort on a 16-axle truck. The Stuart Collection says placing and securing the boulders was complex and unusual in the construction world.