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Artist's StatementWords cannot express what is revealed in the artwork. With words I can only share my thoughts as I lovingly mold in clay some of the many people who have come to this junction of our mighty rivers. Tweleve thousand years ago, during our last ice age, a hunter lost his clovis spear point in the ribs of a woolly mammoth very close by. Pyramid builders from the South came to trade pottery and copper and games with hunters from the North. A thousand years ago Oneota Chief Red Horn married a red headed giantess. French and British and American militiamen fought for property rights with the native Americans. The child of a black slave who had come up river became a traveling minstrel and sang and played her mandolin here. Captain William D. Bowell piloted his paddlewheel excursion boats here. Treaties between the United States and the Native Americans were signed here. Warrior Black Hawk surrendered to Colonel Zachary Taylor at Fort Crawford. Beaver skins for beaver top hats worn in London and Paris were harvested. Tourists came and miners and missionaries, and all the while families settled and children were born and grew up here. Each sculpture introduces another person who came this way. This is our story and it continues as we live it today. And each sculpture does not stand alone but is connected with each other sculpture to form a group which tells more than the individual stories. We carry the experiences and beliefs we grew up with. Where so many people with different backgrounds from far and wide and near come together there can be conflict and creativity and resolve and far more energy than in places where the population stays unchanging. Just as nature shows us, phenomenal growth and new species appear where different ecosystems come together. People of this area have new strengths and ideas and ways of being and are enriched because we come from so many different places and bring so many different life experiences. When we come together more is possible because we have these many sources. I believe this area, in our country's midwest, where the peaceful Wisconsin River meets the mighty Mississippi, where people have traveled and worked and traded and fought since time began, is the enriched place which can express the creative identity of our whole nation. As you visit this park of life size sculptures imagine yourself joining the group coming together to have a picnic and trade stories.
- Florence Bird, Artist
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