Artist's Inspiration:

Two Bits

The community of  Bend began in the early 1900s and the main industry for many decades was timber production.  This sculpture of two life-sized draft horses pulling a ponderosa log  is made to celebrate that era of  Bend’s beginnings. 

It was commissioned by Penny & Phil Knight and placed at the Farewell Bend Park by the bridge that countless pine logs were brought across the river to be processed into lumber by the Brooks/Scanlon and Shevlin/Hixon mills that competed on opposite banks of the Deschutes.

Constructed mainly of ‘found objects’ this sculpture affords the viewer the chance to enjoy an early days horse logging theme while discovering many antiques and rusty imponderables!  The male horse is more of a gear head of the industrial age while the female is more ropes & pulleys technology with some domestic items included as well.

A 1st impression of horses and log from a distance is only the 1st layer of a discovery process that takes some time.  The next layer is finding it made of unexpected materials.  Yet another layer is the selection and placement of those materials that had a former life in a completely different realm.  Yet another layer is finding a very conflicted auto differential cover on the mare that spent it’s former life as a rear end and is now a front end!  You can’t discover what it is all about by just walking by.  

I’d like to share yet another layer found only here in this statement of artist’s inspiration.  This is the underpinning of the composition I’ve chosen and where the rubber, or log,  meets the road.

            “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.  What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?  Or what fellowship has light with darkness?”   2 Corinthians 6:14
How much productive work would be done if these two horses were going 2 different directions?  Why do we marvel at the frequency of divorce when so little attention is paid to this truth when most of us are dating?  I can’t tell you how fortunate I am to have had Jean as a partner the last 39 years sharing the critically important values. 

            “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”  Matthew 5:5 
Other translations render meek as humble or gentle.  Our society interprets meekness as weakness- a wimpy, non-violent doormat.  That misses the biblical definition by a mile.  True meekness isn’t a natural quality but is produced by God’s Holy Spirit.  In proper context it is far from weakness and is associated with great authority and power.  The underlying Greek word in the Bible is describing the transformation from a wild and unruly (worthless) animal into a teachable, trained, and quiet strength that operates magnificently under the proper authority of God.  What better picture of godly meekness (power under control) than a team of massive draft horses working side by side?!!!