The Freedom Park -
The Sound of Freedom Calling
(I will lead a team of artists to create a landmark wooden wonder)
By Matthew Welter
Within days of the 9/11 attacks, I made public my intent to create a colossal monument, which I have named The Advance of Freedom (Nevada Appeal, 12/10/01). The proposed host city is Nevada’s capitol, Carson City and the name of my production studios and apprentice program is Timeless Sculptures.
For some 15 years I have been developing an apprentice program designed to train a team of talented professionals for the purpose of producing large-scale, sculptural projects. A cursory search of the internet will verify that this rare confluence is responsible for some of the finest outdoor wooden statuary produced in America. We are proud to be part of wood’s mainstream emergence as a legitimate medium for artistic expression.
For over 30 years the company has produced works ranging from traditional human and wildlife themes to pure-form abstractions; most in wood, some monumental.
I welcome the opportunity the commissions offer me to study and teach. The diverse subject matter provides ample challenge for all of us. The commissions pay a lot of bills but more, they are a chance to learn and refine the ABC’S of good sculpture: Anatomy, Balance, Composition…
Producing works with pre-determined parameters has taught us versatility and discipline, two instruments that will be welcome in future productions, including The Advance of Freedom. At the same time the commissions give my apprentices the means to support their education even while undergoing that arduous training.
Shortly following 9/11, I and three of my journeymen apprentices drafted a document. We signed the statement, along with the director of the capitol city’s official council on the arts, The BreweryArtsCenter. Joe McCarthy is now Director of Redevelopment for the city and I am pleased to receive his continued encouragements. By the time of this writing (early 2004) two more apprentices have risen to journeymen, thus becoming our mission statement’s newest signatories:
The Advance of Freedom
A declaration of intent
We, the undersigned, support and anticipate the creation of a colossal monument by Timeless Sculptures, to be hewn from a single American Redwood tree, as large as can be transported. Privately sponsored, publicly owned and overseen -- a sturdy message on the sea of time. To this end, we offer our considerations, our knowledge and encouragements;
that we should honor our most sacred struggle and fragile liberty –
the advance of human freedom.
Every war, every alliance, every discovery and movement has been driven by the voice of freedom calling. The advance of human freedom has been the theme of every age and this has never been truer then in the time we are living. Our children and theirs could see the cause of freedom threatened, perhaps like never before.
We will create a marker at this crossroads in time, at the gateway to one of the nation’s great capitols. This will be a steak in the ground to continually mark the cause of freedom -- a pictorial statement in 3 dimensions. Its message of resolve against discouragement will be understood, if need be, by a people lacking technology or even literacy. It must not be lightly eroded by the elements, fire or flood. Nor should it be defiled by human hands. Like freedom it must be genuine, that it would inspire its own preservation by those same hands. It should be hewn masterfully, in one piece, from nature’s most enduring species -- the gnarly stump of a giant Redwood Tree, appropriately found only in America.
My strategy to produce The Advance of Freedom begins not with a pencil but with sculptor’s wax. I must first create the floor-sized wax model or “moquette”, the essential pattern that will guide the execution of the enlargement. This will be a loose composite of smaller anatomical studies, pure-form abstractions and contemporized figures.
Capturing the concepts and images directly in the wax, for me, is a more direct and seminal point of original creativity. Until then, my body of work and the following description will provide a point of reference for the sculpture in my mind:
A huge being represents the evolution of the human spirit, no longer a creature. Instead, the figure rises angelic, androgynous from a swirling composition of impassioned human forms. All engaged in some arduous, invigorating, elemental quest, the characters are free of clothing, depicted in various states of realism, cubism, surrealism. Aspects, fragments and whole figures, in a spectrum of scale, emerge and submerge into a matrix of pure-form abstraction. Guileless demonstrations in shape frame and support the human compositions, all comprising the envelope form.
In the autumn of 2003, I proposed, to related agencies and in public record (Nevada Appeal 10/3/03), a monumental sculpture park at Carson City’s southern gateway. This park would be the production site of and permanent home for the freedom monument. The “process” of art may be as invigorating at a rest stop as someday the finished sculpture may be from the interstate.
Known locally as the “Crossroads of Nevada”, the intersection is currently the proposed production site for the monument and one of the West’s oldest junctions. It is soon to be the southern crossing of a critical bypass and is scheduled for major revisions to the infrastructure.
Two interstates (US395 & US50) cross here, at the capitol city’s most prominent gateway. The junction is also the eastern gateway into the majestic Lake Tahoe Basin, just beyond the pass. The eastern face of the Sierra Nevada mountain range provides a stunning backdrop for the historic intersection.
There, in stark view, on the northwest corner, against the high-dessert foothillsis Timeless Sculptures. With nothing around to block the passer’s view, the sculpture gardens and works-in- progress stand out, shimmering against a sky blue building, muraled with whimsical white clouds.
Funding for The Advance of Freedom will be obtained from private collectors and corporate sponsors, encouraged along by a marketing system refined in the pursuit of more traditional commissions. A non-profit, public arts organization will act as fiscal agent for the project, thereby allowing the greatest tax deduction allowable. This public entity will over-see the dispersion of payments at various stages of completion.
Some funds and equipment may be provided by corporate sponsors who wish to be connected with the high-profile project. Preliminary talks with lumber industry personnel about providing the colossal tree stump have been encouraging, tool manufacturers are also attentive, given the public relations opportunities. Sponsors, private or corporate, will be honored at the location; their names immortalized on prominent bronze plaques. They may also sign our Declaration of Intent, as a commissioner of a given piece or provider of resources.
In the wax studio, with the help of various models, anatomy charts and books featuring past masters; I will create the many anatomical studies and artist’s proofs. Castings of these will be part of a limited-edition series -- the collectable Freedom Series.
Some patrons may commission anatomical studies or the artist’s proof of a more conceptual figure. The first signed, bronze cast of each figure will grace the commissioner’s collection, while a wax cast will become one component of the floor-sized moquette for the actual monument. One patron may commission the compilation of the final wax “envelope-moquette” and add its first signed cast to their art collection.
Hollow wax castings of the studies, integrated and supported by masterful, pure-form abstractions will ultimately comprise the floor-sized moquette for The Advance of Freedom.
Subsequent castings may then be used as visual marketing aids and sold to help with the production costs of the actual enlargement.
Appropriately, no public funding will be accepted to produce this monument. Like freedom, it will be supported voluntarily, by those who would proudly earn its privilege.
The apprentice program is central to producing The Advance of Freedom. My apprentices run the business, doing every thing from floors to office detail. I am enthusiastic about our fledgling “Tech Forum” where the more cyber-savvy are assembling a web-site that must be seen to believe (Timeless Sculptures.com).
Currently, apprentices begin part-time, as novices, after a detailed screening – no wage, no tuition. They can progress to Journeyman in a few months to a year, depending on factors. Closely supervised journeyman may work directly with clients, even designing sculptures and closing commissions.
Qualified journeyman may be awarded these commissions to complete, sometimes for tens of thousands, collecting a percentage determined largely by the journeyman's skill level, equipment, materials and resources. Supporters can aid the training process by commissioning more traditional wood carvings from Timeless Sculptures’ apprentices.
Under my training and supervision, apprentices are now designing sculptures and filling commissions with a degree of expertise rivaling my own -- and that’s the idea. For years I’ve been developing the net-work of talented professionals whose experienced hands can help mine to create The Advance of Freedom.
This network must include artists, administrators, marketers, technicians and more. A handful of such proven professionals already exist, now with their own studios. They are equipped and skilled to assist, as the project moves forward.
Since signing The Declaration of Intent, I have purchased two auxiliary studios and a spacious residence, in order to expand my wax works and casting facilities and to accommodate apprentices and interns while they settle into their new situation.
This article is a call to excellence. It is intended to attract the quality apprentices to drive The Advance of Freedom project, which could take decades to complete. I hope, with my efforts and resources, to engage the passions of others who would also mark, for a future time, the timeless sound of freedom calling.
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Fine art from Timeless Sculptures:
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