A Day in the Life of a Sculptor

Every so often I’ll post “A Day in the Life”. For you, the reader. And for my mom, so she knows I’m working.

A Day in the Life of a Sculptor; November 6, 2022

Day 1 of 2; I got out of bed at 4:30 am, mostly wide awake because I couldn’t sleep. That tends to be my normal before I leave for an install. I had decided a couple of days before leaving that I’d load up the sculptures first thing in the morning rather than the day before. The ten sculptures I took to West Point, Nebraska were seven battlefield crosses, one saluting US Navy and two Vietnam medals.

The night before Jessica suggested I try to fit all ten bronze sculptures in my truck and not haul a trailer. I quickly reacted with “do you know what I’m hauling???” And afterwards said to her “I’ll think about it”. Well it turns out she was right; all 900 pounds of bronze sculptures fit in my truck. And therefore no trailer was needed (Thank you, Jessica!)

The eight hour drive was very peaceful. These drives across state lines usually are for me. Especially going to a familiar place in West Point, where I can look forward to visiting my client and friend Earl. Earl has continuously bought sculptures from me for the past ten or so years. I was fortunate to have a pair of Bluetooth headphones with me so I listened to a good amount of Bruce Springsteen and a podcast called Artholes that delves into the crazy lives of famous artists. With the earbuds in and mind-wandering the drive went fast.

Bohemian Duck!

When I arrived Earl invited me to dinner at a wonderful restaurant; the Bohemian Duck. His daughter, grandson and an employee Casey met us. Bohemian Duck is in downtown West Point. Although I had heard of their food from Earl I wouldn’t have guessed it would turn out to be anything comparable to a cafe in Paris or a small restaurant in SF. This was a small town after all. Boy, was I wrong! The salmon was the best. Since I love to cook I had to find out what went into this delicious meal. However, I was stopped short as the waitress wouldn’t share the chefs secret ingredient. She did say the fish is flown in weekly. And… they don’t freeze the fish. So what you get is as fresh as it comes. For the eleven years I’ve been coming to West Point this was my first great meal.

A Day in the Life; November 7, 2022

Day 2 of 2; It was a second consecutive night of little sleep. I woke up slow but ready for the day ahead. After skipping the less than tolerable hotel breakfast I met Earl and his two workers, Lance and Casey at 8 o’clock at their office. We decided to unload the seven battlefield crosses from my truck and place them in Earl’s large display room/gallery for review.

Rick and Vaughn, two American Veterans Park co-chairmen arrived shortly after. They carefully looked over the sculptures to determine which of the two would go to American Veterans Park. The remaining five sculptures would be dispersed to Veterans parks in Florida and Omaha, not far from West Point. Once looked over we loaded them in my truck and drove to the site to start the installation.

Installation and Military Memorabilia

Lance, Casey and myself started the installation around 9:30am. It went fairly quickly with the three of us. By 12 noon we were finished and AVP was one step closer to being completed. After an interview with WPNews and meeting passersby in the park, Earl and I met Rick at his new military surplus store.

We got a tour of the many military memorabilia Rick has collected over the years. The ones that I found real interesting were the uniforms and medals of WWII Nazi Germany. Did you know that Hitlers regime created a non-stop propaganda campaign in order to boost the population of his new race of people? He would award a three tiered “Mother Cross” medal in bronze, silver and gold for mothers who genetically fit within the model of the Aryan race and had conceived children of more than four. It was an attempt to increase the birthrate during Nazi rule. Rick had at least one of the Mother Crosses and an accompanying letter with Hitlers signature. With Ricks thorough knowledge of all things military and his elaborate collection it was truly like walking into military history.

After visiting the new military surplus store we had lunch at the local pizza barn before saying our goodbyes. At 2:30pm I put my earbuds in, cranked up Dido (don’t judge me) and began chipping away at the 8 hour drive home.

Below are photos of the US Navy Officer in bronze just after the installation.