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"Behold Your Little Ones"

Made of exquisite Carrara marble, this life size statue is displayed in a pioneer cemetery for unknown pioneer children at the Pioneer Heritage Park in Salt Lake City, Utah.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Duty Calls "

The first in a two part series of twice life size bronzes honoring the Mormon Battalion. The monuments will be unveiled in 2010 at the new Mormon Battalion Visitors Center at Heritage Park in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In 1846, President James Polk in his pursuit of Americas “Manifest Destiny”, waged war on Mexico.  General Stephen Kearney was dispatched to California with a relatively small army while recruiting efforts were still under way in frontier western United States.  The Mormons had been driven from Nauvoo, Illinois and were scattered across Iowa and Nebraska territories.  The President of the Church, Brigham Young responded to President Polk’s request to muster 500 volunteers to march to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and then to San Diego and Los Angeles, opening a new road for wagons to California and secure California for the United States.  These were mostly family men who left their families scattered in tents or wagons, or make-shift lean-to’s in Indian Territory.  The sacrifice is sculpted into the nameless face representing the many mothers who were uncertain of their own fates or whether they would see their husband again. (“Duty Calls”)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Duty Triumphs"

The second in a two part series of twice life size bronzes honoring the Mormon Battalion. The monuments will be unveiled in 2010 at the new Mormon Battalion Visitors Center at Heritage Park in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In “Duty Triumphs” the tattered and sick survivors are seen as they arrived at San Luis Rey near San Diego, on January 29, 1847.  More than half had no shoes, and their clothes were rags.  They turned San Diego into a city with their building a brick factory and house-building.  Half of the Battalion went north to Los Angeles and built Fort Moore overlooking the small pueblo.  On their way back east, they ended up on John Sutter’s mill near Sacramento where they discovered gold, then blazed the trail over the Sierra-Nevadas.

 

"Arts Inspiration"

“Arts Inspiration” is a symbolic treatise of how great art uplifts and refines the soul. Orpheus, identified by his flute, brings music to earth such as that scored beside him—the first 15 notes of “Ode to Joy” of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a favorite of the Artist. The Muses bring to earth the color of oil pigments to create paintings and the bow to make the violin’s music divine. The children are lifted upward by their invitation climbing upon volumes of great literature: the Odyssey, Jane Eyre, and Moby Dick.

The fountain and monument are located in front of the Vert Performing Arts Center in Dr. Neal's hometown of Pendleton, Oregon.