Frog statue at Yavapai College Sculpture Garden. Photo Credit: Sam Lowe

PRESCOTT — Yavapai County is a dandy place for those people who delight in seeking out giant frogs. Their most famous destination is a 16-ton boulder painted to look like a frog that sits along Highway 89 north of Congress. But there’s another, more sophisticated, oversized pond dweller on the campus of Yavapai College in Prescott. This one leaps upward in the college’s Sculpture Garden, a collection of contemporary art.

The garden offers a good representation of what artists can do with welded aluminum and stainless steel. It’s been on the campus since the early 1990s, and covers about four acres. but it contains only about a dozen sculptures because the selection committee only chooses one work per year.

Among those selected is “Leaps and Bounds,”  a whimsical frog cast in bronze. It’s a visitor favorite and draws great interest from art students who frequently use the garden as a study and research area. The frog stands more than five feet tall and is the work of local artist John Skurja.

Visitors can meander through the garden during most daytime hours, and there’s no admission fee.