Tiny unicorns are spreading joy all over Providence. Who's behind them is a mystery

Finding a unicorn in Providence is like, well, finding a unicorn.

Locals have spotted the mythic beasts perched in window sills, sitting on steps and laying in plain sight on streets.

They elicit amusement from their claimants, who stash them away and carry them home. One took hers to drinks at a local bar.

Their less than two-inch stature makes them easy to miss. But their neon hues and satin-like sheen catch the eye of the hunter, who might almost walk by before realizing they’ve stumbled upon a treasure.

Such was the case with this Providence Journal reporter who, after two excursions through the city on a Monday, found one resting in the window of Nick-a-Nees, the South Street watering hole.

'Oh my God! Other people are finding these!'

"I don’t know who’s doing it," said Hannah Kirk. "But when someone posted on that Facebook page … I texted my friend and I was like, Oh my God! Other people are finding these!"

Kirk unwittingly became part of a citywide phenomenon when she spotted one of the plastic 3D-printed unicorns outside Red Door, a downtown bar, on Jan. 27.

Through a local Facebook page, she learned others were picking them up, too. A few have been spotted around Red Door, prompting Kirk to suspect an employee may be the artist. One patron even reported finding a unicorn that had been dropped in his pocket. But one of bar's owners, state Rep. Matt Dawson, said no one at the establishment is claiming credit.

"Not only nobody’s admitting it, but I doubt it," Dawson said, quipping that he and his staff lacked the talent to fashion the figurines.

"I deny all allegations and all alligators," Dawson added.

Instead, he thinks it's the work of a Rhode Island School of Design Student.

"That is a notorious campaign by RISD students," Dawson said. "That’s how Shepard Fairey got his start."

Fairey, a RISD graduate who became a renowned street artist, got his start in 1989 with a sticker campaign he launched in Rhode Island. Now iconic, it featured a simple black and white illustration of wrestler Andre the Giant, often accompanied by the command, "OBEY."

Eventually, the images showed up in cities across the country.

But is the mystery unicorn maker really an artist?

Does 3D printing, the process of using a machine to construct a tangible object layer by layer, really count as an art form?

Michael Rose, gallery manager at the historic Providence Art Club, thinks so.

"We have a lot of artists using 3D printing now in a whole variety of ways," Rose said, "because some people use it to sculpt their own 3D imagery that they’ll design ... It is beginning to become something that’s very popular."

However, a quick search online revealed that the template for the unicorns appears to be open source, meaning it is publicly available for anyone to use. Theoretically, the creator wouldn't need to have artistic abilities to crank out the objects with what is a digital cookie cutter.

Why would the creator want to remain anonymous? That's common.

Several unicorn finders The Providence Journal interviewed did not know the identity of their creator. But anonymously-made art is an age-old practice.

"Anonymous art is actually a very big tradition in art history … Almost the majority of art that’s been made in history is actually anonymous," Rose said. "Up until the medieval period, everything was basically anonymous."

Examples, Rose said, include paintings attributed to "Rembrandt's workshop," the "School of Rembrandt" or the "circle of" an artist, which "was probably someone who wasn’t directly affiliated with the artist but they worked in the same style."

Apprenticeships under a particular artist could also result in anonymously-created work.

"It’s only really after the Renaissance there starts to be this idea of signing work, making it more clear who works are attributed to," Rose said.

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'Truthfully anyone could be doing this,' says RISD professor

As for the unicorns, whether the artist has given their anonymity much thought, or is simply hovering over a 3D printer somewhere is anyone's guess.

"I just know there are people who are saying 'my friend,'" said Sari Greene, who found her unicorn on Point Street. "So I know there are people who know and they’re keeping it close to their chest."

Scott Lerner, who teaches contemporary art at RISD, said with 3D printers available on campus, at Brown University, in the Providence Public Library and in stores for less than $200, "truthfully anyone could be doing this."

But it would take a long time. Lerner ran the open source unicorn design – mentioned earlier – through his 3D printing software and found it would take about five hours to make.

Already, there are precedents for hiding objects around cities. Lerner pointed to "geocaching," a modern-day worldwide treasure hunt in which participants track down items via GPS. He also cited "Game of Frogs," a scavenger hunt that went viral in Washington, D.C., last year when artist Andrew Simpson placed frog sculptures across the city.

"Someone essentially made little concrete statues of frogs and hid them around town," Lerner said. "Folks would then seek them out in a scavenger hunt game and photograph themselves with them on Instagram."

Here in Providence, Jackie Pires, who works at local music venue Askew, found her unicorn at the end of a shift around 3 a.m., propped on a box outside the door. She suspects it could have been left by someone in a band. Coincidentally, Red Door, Nick-a-Nees and Askew all feature live music.

The intent? Maybe just spreading joy.

"That's a very Providence thing to do," she said.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Who’s creating the unicorns popping up around Providence?