Nebeker Sculpture

BILL NEBEKER Prescott's Heroic Sculptor

Will Arizona's mile-high city, Prescott-noted for its frontier spirit, rodeo, and restorationsfind new fame as a world center of fine sculpture? It will, if the Prescott Community Art Trust and sculptors like Bill Nebeker have their way.

The Art Trust's first step was to offer a $10,000 commission to the Yavapai County, Arizona, artist who would create the best sculpture of Prescott's early settlers. Of the five artists who submitted pieces, the Art Trust chose Nebeker's group rendition of a miner, a freighter, a rancher, and a frontier woman as the winner.

To fund the venture, the nonprofit Art Trust sold 100 scaleddown versions of Prescott's famous bronze honoring Roosevelt Roughrider Buckey O'Neill, unveiled July 3, 1907. The full-size equestrian statue, crafted for $10,000 by Solon Borglum under the commission of Robert Morrison, Richard E. Sloan (territorial governor), Ed W. Wells, M.J. Hickey, and committee chairman Morris Goldwater (uncle of Senator Barry Goldwater) can still be admired in the courthouse square, leaping from a native granite boulder.

Now a second masterpiece will make its home in the fast-growing town. Nebeker's twelve-inchhigh model will be replicated as an eight-foot bronze to stand at the Y in U.S. Route 89 where it becomes Gurley and Sheldon streets in east Prescott. The Art Trust will pay for casting and assembly of the piece with Nebeker supplying the necessary finishing touches after it is cast.

Sale of small versions of Nebeker's sculpture may raise money for another such commission. Then Prescott's reputation as a haven of heroic bronzes will flourish, and private and corporate monies will fund more work-at least if the Art Trust has anything to say about it. Nebeker, in the meantime, is modest about his part in the enterprise. Although increasingly confident in his work, he insists he was an unlikely candidate for a career in art. (A difficult claim to believe while inspecting his intricately detailed sculptures.) Nebeker strives for detailed, highly finished results. He works slowly, "It's all I can do to turn out four major pieces a year." His miner (BELOW) looks like a man panning for gold, hoping this pan will be the one; the cowboy, with six gun and spurs, stands proud, his eyes locked on the future.

"As an artist, I don't follow the rules. I can't draw or sketch, so I research with a camera. Once I have an idea-which often seems to click in my mind-I spend several weeks thinking about it." His schoolteacher/wife (LEFT) is the result of just such research as is the freighter (BELOW). The Bible held tightly in the crook of the woman's arm is a metaphor for the knowledge, strength, goodness, and understanding she brought to the frontier. Not a pasteboard figure but a working, striving transporter of goods, the freighter is a creation complete with bullwhip and canvas duster.

B I L L N E B E K E R

In the comfortable surroundings of his rural Prescott home, Nebeker, dressed in cowboy attire, sits back, an easy smile spreading across his face. Though never a working cowboy, he's no stranger to the trade. He often rides roundups with rancher friends, sharing in the work. It's a pastime he feels "gets the smell of the dirt" into his sculpture.

But cowboying wasn't his life's goal. In fact, Nebeker for a long time didn't know what he wanted to do-and art wasn't even a consideration."I never thought about art whatsoever," he recalls. "As a kid I was always just making things-little dolls, miniature saddles-but I never thought about art." When he was 10, Nebeker and his parents moved from Twin Falls, Idaho, to Prescott at the urging of the family doctor, who prescribed Prescott's climate as the cure for Nebeker's severe allergies. The climate did the trick. Nebeker, an only child, grew up a Prescott boy, a little shy and unsure of what he wanted to do with his life. To his parents' dismay, a year and a half of college didn't help him decide.

"I told my folks college was a waste of their money and my time. At that point I would rather have dug a ditch." Art, he reiterates, was the farthest thing from his mind.Had it not been for a one-man bronze showing of the works of the late George Phippen, Nebeker probably would not be one of the rising stars in today's Western art world. His interest in the Phippen show at first was, by Nebeker's own admission, minimal. However, prodding by his parents ("They dragged me down to the thing.") may have changed the course of his life.

"I went there-and I went crazy. I couldn't believe the stuff!" he exclaims. Every day during its week-long stint at a local bank, Nebeker went to see the show. But his shyness kept him from talking to Phippen. Nebeker wistfully admits: "I would stand and watch him talk to other people, yet I couldn't go talk to him....But I just loved his work.

Nebeker's zest for sculpture was fired. After a quick trip to purchase some modeling clay, Nebeker sat down to create his first work. "It was a disaster," he recalls with a smile. But his determination was such, when the chance came to give up his $2-an-hour job with the Forest Service for a $1.50-an-hour apprenticeship with the George Phippen Foundry in Prescott, Nebeker jumped at it.

Although mentor Phippen died before Nebeker could meet him, it wasn't long before Nebeker learned the how-tos of sculpting and casting. His foundry work, art books lent to him by Mrs. Phippen, and advice from successful sculptors combined to give him a start. But the road to success wasn't without its rough spots.

For ten years he worked at the foundry by day and sculpted each night at home.

"It's hard to work on fine things all day long and then come home and work on even more intricate stuff," he confides. But for Nebeker, that hard work paid off in 1978 in the form of an invitation to join the Cowboy Artists of America. At 34, he became the youngest member of the star-studded association.

Among Nebeker's early pieces was a portrayal of John Wayne in the movie The Searchers. A presentation to the Duke followed, and additional sales to several of Wayne's friends. Today Nebeker's popularity grows; his bronzes appreciate in value. And if he still has a tendency to shyness, the affable cowboy artist keeps it well hidden.

Now Bill Nebeker thinks a lot about art. And someday soon, all who enter Prescott from the east on U.S. Route 89 will be able to see one of his works. Nebeker couldn't be more pleased. He loves Prescott, the surrounding area, the people. "I've never left," he says. "Never wanted to." In his voice lurks an implied assurance he never will.

And Prescott-along with its Community Art Trust-is proud to have the "unlikely artist"as a fulltime resident.