Colorado artist Ted Schaal won a $60,000 commission to create a new sculpture that will be installed in Riverfront Park in downtown Little Rock.
“It’s amazing. I don’t know what to say,” a slightly shocked Schaal said after his win was announced Saturday night at Little Rock’s Marriott Hotel.
Schaal was one of three sculptors whose work had been narrowed down from more than 30 entrants for the prize, which was voted on by those attending the party “A Night in the Garden” put on by the group Sculpture at the River Market.
Competing against Schaal were fellow Colorado sculptors Lorri Acott and Mark Leichliter.
“I love his work,” said Dr. Dean Kumpuris, a Little Rock city director and the vice chairman of Sculpture at the River Market. “I love all three of them. But I think [Schaal’s] is a great piece of sculpture. It will look great where we are going to have it. It’s different and very interesting. It really is a unique and different piece.”
The Sculpture at the River Market group will donate Schaal’s piece to the city.
Schaal’s bronze and stainless steel sculpture, which he calls Open Window, is inspired by the saying “God doesn’t close a door without opening a window,” Schaal said before his win was announced.
“For me, that saying is about recognizing grace and opportunity in your life when you don’t think you have any,” he said, as party goers mingled and checked out drawings of the three proposed sculptures. “You have to take advantage of those moments because they are fleeting. The window doesn’t stay open forever.”
Schaal, like Acott and Leichliter, has competed in the Little Rock competition before and has a smaller piece called Mirage in the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden.
Last year’s winner, University of Central Arkansas art professor Bryan Massey Sr., attended Saturday’s party and his winning sculpture, Nautilus, was unveiled earlier in the evening. A formal dedication will be held in “two or three weeks,” said Jane Rogers of Sculpture at the River Market.
For Massey, the win sparked almost a year of “hectic” work.
“It’s going to be exciting for the winner,” of this year’s competition, he said. “There’s nothing like waiting to hear your name called. But there will be some disappointment, as well.”
Acott, whose entry was entitled On the Shoulders ofture Open Window in Little Rock’s Riverfront Park.
Giants, said she wasn’t nervous before the winner was announced.
“I’m excited, but not nervous,” she said. “I’m going to make this sculpture either way. It would make me so happy to put it here. I love this place. Everybody is so warm and beautiful. I really love Little Rock.”
Leichliter said he was just happy to be in the company of his rivals.
“This is the first time I’ve gotten to see my competition, and it’s all fantastic. If I’m going to lose … at least it will be to something really good.”
Little Rock City Manager Bruce Moore said that more public art is a good thing for the city.
“This is an unbelievable attraction to our downtown,” he said of the sculpture garden. “I travel a lot to other cities, and you see that cities are investing in public art. It’s about the quality of life and exposing people to things that they really haven’t seen.”
The big question for Schaal is what does he plan to do with that $60,000?
“Well, more than half of it will go into the production of the sculpture. For the other portion, I’ve got some business debts to pay down and my daughter wants to take singing lessons,” he said. “Just real practical stuff. I can’t go out and party with it. I have other designs I want to produce.”
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 10/27/2013