#120, Lest We Forget unveiling

Lest We Forget at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, bronze, 2016

So incredibly humbled and honored to have made this monument honoring the sacrifices of our ww2 veterans with Fredric Arnold. Yesterday was the unveiling at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. This memorial will soon head off to New Orleans' National WW2 Museum.

The project took me 1 1/2 years to sculpt, starting in 2013, and I worked closely with Arnold, a ww2 army air corp pilot and a man whom I call my friend. Although this was THE most difficult monument I have ever created it is also one of the most rewarding. The biggest challenge I had was that I needed to make each of the figures separately yet somehow all relate to each other and not feel disjointed, plus they needed to fit up in bronze (accounting for shrink and all made things very challenging). The reasons for making them one at a time was due to limited studio space and I didn't want to shape 3000 lbs. of clay at the same time. I think it's important to have a sense of accomplishment while doing something so large and by doing them carefully one at a time allowed for a little pat on the back and a feeling of completion. Lots of measuring, but I'm just glad the foundry still talks to me.