"Shoulder to Shoulder Even the Fallen Stand Tall"
Bronze Sculpture
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"SHOULDER TO SHOULDER"
Bronze Sculpture
'Maquette' for Iron Range Veteran's Memorial
Limited Edition--Still available
Dimensions: 2'H x 3 3/4'W x 1 1/2'D
Price...$30,000
"Shoulder to Shoulder Even the Fallen Stand Tall"
Bronze 'Monument' in Veteran's Park, Virginia, MN. See Vet's Memorial.
Dimensions: 15'H x 27' W x 12'D
Please scroll down to read the Story of "SHOULDER TO SHOULDER" , view the Slide Show, and see the maquette in the MN State Capitol.
"Shoulder to Shoulder" Maquette Slide Show
The Story of....
"SHOULDER TO SHOULDER EVEN THE FALLEN STAND TALL"
Some of the Veteran’s of the Iron Range of Minnesota approached me with the task of creating a sculptural monument in bronze for a memorial park. The design was to bring together life size figures of varied ethnic backgrounds, representative of all five branches of the United States armed forces and their women’s corps. (Army, Coast Guard, Navy, Marines, Air Force) and the Merchant Marines…spanning the five major wars of the 20th century in which the U.S.A. played a significant role (WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf)..adding to these the unifying symbols of the American Bald Eagle and “Old Glory”, our “Stars and Stripes”.
I present to them, and now to you “Shoulder to Shoulder Even the Fallen Stand Tall”. In this sculpture , each of the branches finds its representative in a different one of the five conflicts, thus becoming something of a human time capsule: what would have been grandfathers, fathers, sons and grandsons (and their female siblings) over an eighty to one hundred year period are here all caught agelessly together, united in a moment of time and space in a single act.
An army “Doughboy” of WWI, his own Springfield M1903 service rifle slung on his shoulder and his wash pan helmet on the ground between his feet, reaches to hang an empty WWII/Korean issue helmet on the butt of a Garand MI rifle bayoneted into the ground. Wounded head wrapped in rags, the “war to end all wars” figure marks the fallen of the war which followed. He is supported on the shoulders of a Vietnam era nurse and Marine…(A young Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969), privy to discussions leading to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles ending WWI, was very disillusioned by the harshness of the victors toward the vanquished Germany. Though he respected President Wilson and the U.S. as the only voices calling for mercy in the peace settlements following Armisitice, he would as an old man, forty to fifty years later, collide with us in Vietnam. Had mercy prevailed in 1918 France, maybe Vietnam would not have been the battlefield of the 1960’s, still bearing some of the burden of WWI)….Under the covering wing (half folded) a WWII Coast Guardsman pulls from the waves his comrade in securing the shipping lanes above and below the waters, A Merchant Marine of the same era. To the other side of the trio at the point of this mix-matched squad, along the spread wing, stands a Korean War sailor keeping the deck of his foothold in the Yellow Sea from burning out from under him; a WWII aviator ( the women’s Air Ferrying Squadron “WAFS” and women’s Air Service Pilots “WASP”) without whom the first two years of our part in the air war would have “crashed and burned”; and finally an Air force Pilot quickly disposes of the silk that saved his life, but now threatens to betray his whereabouts in the Persian Gulf. The object of their shared focus is the marker in the field for one fallen, one of our own. These eight individuals stand loosely "shoulder–to-shoulder" around one leg of a large eagle, an unbroken chain across the years, which in truth they shared in purpose and sacrifice.
The eagle is much larger than life, as he represents us all in whatever roles we play in the keeping of America. He back drops this small squad of warriors, rising above them, breast straining, head thrown back beak wide in full cry of agony and ecstasy, of victory and great loss. One wing is spread wide the other bent in a covering fashion. The eagle’s back is in various stages of transformation from feather to flag. From the small feathers of the head and neck, a field of stars cascades down the shoulders. These give way to stripes (smooth…rough…alternating between the dark and light) superimposed across the plumage, or defining individual feathers as we reach the primary pinions. Moving down from the wing’s leading edge toward its trailing edge the forms and textures of feather become increasingly “fabric" in nature until at ground level the folds of the lower corner of a flag drape the ground as a shroud.
"SHOULDER TO SHOULDER EVEN THE FALLEN STAND TALL"
Some of the Veteran’s of the Iron Range of Minnesota approached me with the task of creating a sculptural monument in bronze for a memorial park. The design was to bring together life size figures of varied ethnic backgrounds, representative of all five branches of the United States armed forces and their women’s corps. (Army, Coast Guard, Navy, Marines, Air Force) and the Merchant Marines…spanning the five major wars of the 20th century in which the U.S.A. played a significant role (WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf)..adding to these the unifying symbols of the American Bald Eagle and “Old Glory”, our “Stars and Stripes”.
I present to them, and now to you “Shoulder to Shoulder Even the Fallen Stand Tall”. In this sculpture , each of the branches finds its representative in a different one of the five conflicts, thus becoming something of a human time capsule: what would have been grandfathers, fathers, sons and grandsons (and their female siblings) over an eighty to one hundred year period are here all caught agelessly together, united in a moment of time and space in a single act.
An army “Doughboy” of WWI, his own Springfield M1903 service rifle slung on his shoulder and his wash pan helmet on the ground between his feet, reaches to hang an empty WWII/Korean issue helmet on the butt of a Garand MI rifle bayoneted into the ground. Wounded head wrapped in rags, the “war to end all wars” figure marks the fallen of the war which followed. He is supported on the shoulders of a Vietnam era nurse and Marine…(A young Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969), privy to discussions leading to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles ending WWI, was very disillusioned by the harshness of the victors toward the vanquished Germany. Though he respected President Wilson and the U.S. as the only voices calling for mercy in the peace settlements following Armisitice, he would as an old man, forty to fifty years later, collide with us in Vietnam. Had mercy prevailed in 1918 France, maybe Vietnam would not have been the battlefield of the 1960’s, still bearing some of the burden of WWI)….Under the covering wing (half folded) a WWII Coast Guardsman pulls from the waves his comrade in securing the shipping lanes above and below the waters, A Merchant Marine of the same era. To the other side of the trio at the point of this mix-matched squad, along the spread wing, stands a Korean War sailor keeping the deck of his foothold in the Yellow Sea from burning out from under him; a WWII aviator ( the women’s Air Ferrying Squadron “WAFS” and women’s Air Service Pilots “WASP”) without whom the first two years of our part in the air war would have “crashed and burned”; and finally an Air force Pilot quickly disposes of the silk that saved his life, but now threatens to betray his whereabouts in the Persian Gulf. The object of their shared focus is the marker in the field for one fallen, one of our own. These eight individuals stand loosely "shoulder–to-shoulder" around one leg of a large eagle, an unbroken chain across the years, which in truth they shared in purpose and sacrifice.
The eagle is much larger than life, as he represents us all in whatever roles we play in the keeping of America. He back drops this small squad of warriors, rising above them, breast straining, head thrown back beak wide in full cry of agony and ecstasy, of victory and great loss. One wing is spread wide the other bent in a covering fashion. The eagle’s back is in various stages of transformation from feather to flag. From the small feathers of the head and neck, a field of stars cascades down the shoulders. These give way to stripes (smooth…rough…alternating between the dark and light) superimposed across the plumage, or defining individual feathers as we reach the primary pinions. Moving down from the wing’s leading edge toward its trailing edge the forms and textures of feather become increasingly “fabric" in nature until at ground level the folds of the lower corner of a flag drape the ground as a shroud.
"Shoulder to Shoulder" on display in Representative Pete Stauber's office in Washington, D.C.
"Shoulder to Shoulder" at the Minnesota State Capitol
The Veterans were honored to have the "Shoulder to Shoulder " maquette displayed in the Governor's Reception Hall of the State Capitol in St. Paul, MN. Scroll down to view photo.
Larry Cuffe, Sr., Don Tekautz, Gareth Andrews, Scott Dane, Jim Wilson
