One of the most enjoyable aspects of being a bronze figure sculptor is getting to sculpt hands. They take a close 2nd to sculpting a face but what I like most about them is that, like a face, there are so many types of hands. This makes it fun to try to develop character and with the seemingly endless possibilities for gesture and expression hands can be the icing on the cake in a bronze sculpture composition if they are treated well.

The collection of hands in this triphoto compilation are 6 hands from my sculpture Returning Home which depicts a husband returning home from war and hugging his wife and little girl. The sculpture will be cast in bronze and installed later this year at a Veterans Park in eastern Nebraska.

As we close out 2017 I can’t help but feel grateful for all that has happened this past year. In the spring I visited Germany and France with my family. I got to visit the Louvre for the first time which was the highlight of my trip. I also got to visit the Rodin museum hotel Biron which had many of Rodin’s sculptures and where Rodin himself lived for the last 9 years or so of his life. As soon as I returned to the states I immediately began work on several life size sculptures some of which were installed last month for Norfolk Veterans Home, Heroes Park in Nebraska. My mom, aunt and step dad were able to attend the celebration/unveiling which included a fly over. It was such an honorable yet humble experience to see so many people take part in honoring the veterans of the Korean War memorial and the WWII memorial that these sculptures represented, despite the frigid cold weather of eastern Nebraska. The families that I worked with for the two sculptures expressed to me their gratitude for the work I did in creating the sculptures and for putting my heart and soul into them.

This year has been a busy year having sculpted 7 life size monuments, as well as various other smaller projects. One of these monuments I worked on is a three figure composition of a military family called Returning Home. The sculpture composition depicts a husband returning home from war and greeting his wife and child and will be cast in bronze and installed in 2018 at American Veterans Park in West Point, Nebraska.

The latest life size clay sculpture is this US Army Honor Guard that will be cast in bronze and permanently installed about 30 feet from the US Marine Honor Guard (completed a couple of months ago) for a Veterans park in Nebraska. Since I had sculpted the first Honor Guard in the exact same pose I was able to modify the clay for this sculpture without having to tear off the clay from the armature. This sculpture is a WWII era honor guard and it was interesting noting the differences in how they used to wear their uniforms back in the 1940’s. I particularly like the slight tilt of the cap that seemed to be common in the military back then.