Prescott Has Sculpture to Match Its Mountains

PRESCOTT SCULPTORS VIE TO CREATE ART TO MAtch Their MOUNTAINS TEXT BY SUSAN VOIGT-REISING PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICHARD MAACK

The high-country terrain that surrounds Prescott, Arizona, is the ancestral home of a group of Yavapai Indians whose reservation now encompasses about 1,400 acres on the city's north side.

In this mountain community where links to the past abound, the proud heritage of the Yavapai is remembered by a bronze statue of an Indian mother, her child cradled in one arm.

Planned to be dedicated by early this fall, the huge work, 50 percent larger than life-size, is only one sculptured reminder of Prescott's rich history. Disseminated throughout the city are other commemorative bronzes. In Veterans Memorial Park stands a statue depicting the early settlers of Yavapai County: a miner, a freighter, a rancher, and a pioneer woman.

Near Prescott's City Hall, a bucking horse, its rider fanning his hat, is captured in bronze, an action-packed tribute to the rodeo cowboy.

How these magnificent figures came to be is a story not only of a community's pride in its history and the people who made it a reality but of a special group ofvisionary folk called the Prescott Community Art Trust and its organizer, Jerri Wagner, a marketing specialist and director of art at Prescott's Sheraton Resort and Conference Center gallery.

The art trust, according to Wagner, a former mayor, traces its genesis to an organization known as the General Federation of Women's Club-Monday Club, which in 1980 set out to obtain permission and funding to care for the city's famous Buckey O'Neill equestrian statue in Courthouse Square. Lights and a plaque have been added to the Solon Borglum work, which was unveiled July 3, 1907, honoring Teddy Roosevelt's famed Rough Riders and the fallen soldiers of the Spanish American War.

"It took a year and more than a little perseverance," Wagner recollects, to push, pull, and prod the club's request through the proper channels. Finally the women got their wish - and in the bargain set the groundwork for the art trust as a public foundation. Its goal: to encourage the artists of Yavapai County.

Wagner wasted no time raising money for a sculptors' exhibit and competition.

The key to success, she believed, was to build on what the community already had: the Buckey O'Neill statue. She contacted the Borglum family, represented by the sculptor's daughter, Monica Borglum Davies, to ask permission for the creation of a series of statuettes inspired by her father's bronze.

Davies admits the family was reluctant to give permission for the replication of her father's work, even if the statuettes weren't to be duplicates. But she was touched by the group's dedication. "Under normal circumstances, we would have said no," Davies says. "But in this particular instance, [the art trust] had so much at stake - so the family agreed." It's a deci-sion she says she has never regretted.

Jack Osmer, a Prescott-based sculptor, agreed to donate his talents to create the scaled-down work from which the statuettes would be made. Meanwhile, Wagner and other art-trust members began selling the first 100 statuettes to buyers at $1,200 apiece. "I was on the phone con-stantly for weeks," Wagner remarks. In the end, each statuette had an owner, and the art trust was on its way.

As Wagner had hoped, the money generated by the sale was enough to sponsor the art trust's premier exhibit of local artists' work. And at that exhibit, she announced the art trust's first Yavapai County sculpture competition. The topic: the county's early settlers. The prize: $10,000. Seventeen local sculptors responded, and jurors selected seven entrants to create statuettes representing their interpretations of the area's forefathers. Nationally recognized jurors chose Prescott's Bill Nebeker as the winner, for his 12-inch-high rendition of the four people he believes played the most important roles in settling the area. (See Arizona Highways, June, '84) As winner, Nebeker not only garnered the prize money but also the paid responsibility of overseeing the casting, assembly, and finishing of the 11-foot bronze replica that stands in Veterans Memorial Park. Also, 61 statuettes were created and sold at $5,500 each ($5,000 to those who already owned a Buckey O'Neill) to raise more money for the art trust.

Under Wagner's guidance, the organization has since sponsored two similar com-petitions, each offering a $10,000 prize. Rick Terry, a West Sedona-based sculptor, had a good idea how to "get the taste of the dirt" into his entry for the art trust's second competition, this time to commemorate the 1988 centennial of the world's first rodeo in Prescott. "I grew up around rodeo cowboys," he relates. In fact, Terry was a rodeo cowboy, both in college and professionally.

Though his event was bull riding, Terry knew how to fashion his bronco-busting working cowboy. "It's really a stylized version of that time period," he explains.

The trust's third competition, announced and judged in 1989, centered on the heritage of the Yavapai Indians. Cari Gail, a West Sedona sculptor, took her vision of a Yavapai woman and child all the way to the winner's circle. Today, as a result of Prescott's growing reputation as an art center, artists continue to be drawn to the area. Wagner estimates more than 30 serious sculptors live and work in Yavapai County. Patrons of the arts are in no short supply either, if art-trust membership and support are any indication. The organization has more than 180 members and has raised in excess of $500,000 to further its programs. Wagner continues to work with the Borglum family to procure a number of Borglum's works. The 23 acquisitions to date, among them a plaster of Davies as a child, circa 1908, and a statue of Benjamin Franklin, created around 1912, make their home at Prescott's Sharlot Hall Museum of territorial Arizona history. And it seems the ties Wagner forged with Davies will continue to prove bene-ficial to Borglum aficionados. In coopera-tion with the art trust, the two organized the Borglum Sculpture Committee to erect five heroic-size statues of the artist's smaller works. With permission granted and costs estimated, all that remains is to find addi-tional sponsors, Wagner notes. But if she has her way, even more excitement will follow. The art trust, as part of the Prescott Historical and Cultural Center, plans to establish a city-block-size museum complex to house very diverse collections. Joining the Sharlot Hall Museum will be four others: the Solon H. Borglum Museum, the Bead Museum, the Frontier Rodeo Museum, and the Regional Southwest Forestry Museum of the National Forest Service. The art trust is doing a good job of "bringing out Prescott's heritage," sculptor Terry says. "It's an opportunity for the artists and the community." But perhaps it is an Indian woman and child, four early settlers, and a hard-riding rodeo cowboy who tell the story of Prescott's heritage most dramatically without uttering a word.

PRESCOTT'S GROWING REPUTATION AS AN ART CENTER BEGAN MORE THAN 80 YEARS AGO WITH THE UNVEILING OF THE HEROIC STATUE OF BUCKEY O'NEILL (OPPOSITE PAGE). MORE RECENT ADDITIONS TO THE TOWN'S ARTISTIC SCENE ARE THE AWARDWINNING COMMEMORATIVE BRONZE (LEFT) HONORING THE AREA'S EARLY SETTLERS, AND THE STATUE OF A BRONCO-BUSTING COWBOY (BELOW), WHICH WAS CREATED BY A SCULPTOR WHO KNOWS WHAT IT TAKES TO ENTER A RODEO ARENA.