My First Large Commission (and brush with history)

 This was my very first large sculpture, commissioned

when I was still in college in 1976. What was at the time the precursor to the Montana Logging and Ballet Co., (our political satire quartet) was touring the Montana high schools. In the small ranching town of Broadus, we heard that the school was looking for a sculpture of their mascot, the hawk. I spent that summer welding this piece in steel and thinking about how I was going to make a living. (Turns out it was making sculptures! Whadaya know?)

What's enlarged the story now is that Jean Hough, the woman who turned me on to the commission, was the mother of Steve Held, (whom I met in '22, my dear friend, and now running for state-wide office in Montana) and the grandmother of Rikki Held, for whom the world-famous Held v. Montana case is named, in which 16 youth sued the state for not upholding their constitutional right to "a clean and healthful environment". They won! The first time in world history! Makes this sculpture seem awful small in comparison.