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Kirk Mangus had a lifelong interest in archetypal myths and stories. It started during his elementary school years, reading about the Greeks and the Romans, which later expanded into myths from cultures all around the world. He thought of these classic stories as recurring lessons about our human relationships. Mangus read and reread them throughout his life. He would often read these stories to his students at Kent State University while they threw on the wheel or wedged clay. It was a way to introduce them to other cultures.
Mangus grew up with dogs and considered them witnesses to our daily lives. Dogs share our ups and downs and observe everything we do and feel. Mangus made portraits of his dogs on paper and in clay. He sculpted several series of dog sculptures large and small. "Siren" belongs to a group of dogs he sculpted, molded, and cast. He would then paint underglazes on the body, exposing what might be their inner thoughts.
"Siren" is shaped after Petey of "The LIttle Rascals" and named after the sirens from the poem "Odyssey" by Homer, one of Mangus’s favorite books. Portraits of friends and family members are painted on the body of this sculpture. They float around like the conscious and subconscious memories we have of people we know, calling to us like the sirens.