By Howard Greninger
Sculptor Bill Wolfe, after seven months of spreading clay, then crafting it into details such as muscles and veins, will soon see his largest undertaking to date cast into bronze.
The West Terre Haute resident’s work is to be the centerpiece of the Carmel Clay Freedom Circle veterans memorial, part of a $900,000 project. Carmel is staging a flag-raising ceremony later this month as much of the memorial is in place.
The memorial, at the southwest corner of Third Avenue and City Center Drive in Carmel, will honor soldiers from the Revolutionary War through to the present-day conflict in Iraq. It includes the sculpture, a brick walkway and a semicircle of seven flags — the U.S. flag, five military flags and prisoner-of-war flag.
A separate reflecting pond, costing about $2.5 million, is near the memorial and blends into the site.
Wolfe, 50, has created two tall figures for the memorial.
The tallest is a woman, about 91/2 feet in height. She is helping a man, who is on one knee, to raise the U.S. flag, as each brace themselves against a strong wind. The two figures will rest on a base about 13 feet wide.
“I get satisfaction from working with people and the veterans,” Wolfe said of the sculpture. “That is the best part of it, as well as doing something that honors veterans.
“It’s the best of both worlds — I get to do my art and work with fascinating people. Veterans each have a fascinating story to tell,” Wolfe said. “It’s an honor and because of that, there is pressure then to do a good job.
“It’s a legacy that I leave and a legacy the veterans leave,” he said.
The flag, with three-dimensional stars, has been the hardest part of the project, Wolfe said, as the flag helps create a sense of motion and wind.
First Sgt. Paul Leturgez of the Robert R. Mosel U.S. Army Reserve Center in Terre Haute helped Wolfe with the project. He provided two soldiers, Sgt. Amy Holmes Beasley and Sgt. Sonny Pearman, to serve as models.
The two dressed in uniforms and traveled to Ohio in July, where a three-dimensional scan was made that Wolf used to help sculpt the final product, Leturgez said.
“We also provided accessories, such as canteens and pistol belts,” Leturgez said.
The project has created a sense of pride among the soldiers, he said.
“It’s pride because actual soldiers are being involved and I can say I knew the people used as models for this,” Leturgez said.
Beasley is back from a deployment in Iraq, while Pearman is prepared to be deployed, Leturgez said. Leturgez and others plan to help Wolfe move the figures Monday into a truck that will transport them to Sincerus Art Casting in Indianapolis, where the artwork will be cast in bronze.
Wolfe said the final product has generic faces, not exactly those of the modeling soldiers.
“When I first started working on the heads, I … started with the eyes. I was surprised how they looked when they were finished. The faces just kind of come to you,” Wolfe said.
It will take hundreds of molds to make the final product. Once Wolfe signs off on its assembly, final welds are made and smoothed, then the bronze sculpture is sandblasted and chemical coloring applied in different shades.
The bronze casting is to be complete by November, Wolfe said.
His father, Bill Wolfe Sr., did much of the labor of spreading clay out over the sculpture. The Wabash Valley Art Guild also helped spread clay out across the figures, saving weeks of work, Wolfe said.
Wolfe used a large welding shop in Clinton that belongs to his father-in-law, Gene Divan, to work on his sculpture. “I told him this may reach the ceiling and it was pretty close,” Wolfe said.
Wolfe’s work can be seen throughout Terre Haute, such as a Navy V-12 statue on the campus of Indiana State University; a statute for a Korean War vet in front of the Vigo County Courthouse; a small bronze fountain in front of an entrance to a funeral home at 25th Street and Wabash Avenue; and a bronze relief of baseball player Max Carey in front of the ISU football stadium.
Wolfe also made an 81/2-foot tall statue of Orville Wright that stands in Dayton, Ohio, at the Wright Brothers Museum, and a war memorial in Webster, Mass.
From 1973 to 1976, Wolfe studied art at ISU. Before focusing on his art, Wolfe was co-owner, then owner of Ideas Incorporated, which created logos for businesses such as Terre Haute Savings Bank and the former Larry Bird’s Boston Connection. The company also produced thousands of TV commercials.
Wolfe now focuses on creating life-size monuments.
Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.
