Russ Roberts: Okay. What did you submit for the competition, both written and physical? By the way, I said to our listeners, “I’m going to put up some videos so you can see what this is like.” And the videos are great. I think the real thing is even more amazing. But the videos show how amazing both the finished work is and the process of making it. I also have some videos about the process of making it. I’ll talk about the process of making it later. So I’m curious what you submitted. Did you submit the whole miniature, or did you submit one of the figures, or did you submit a description? What is the nature of that kind of process in an international contest like this?
Sabine Howard: The submission was completely different to how the project was done. We started with an idea of what we could do, and then had to attend five meetings for a presentation to win the project.
And I painted as before. The models are ordinary people with very distinctive personalities. rental They’re real uniforms. I borrowed real uniforms from about 105 years ago and started taking pictures and came up with the idea. I did two paintings. I think it took about 140 hours for each one.
And Joseph, Joe, came up with the idea for the park. And we won for two reasons. We got the park that Friedberg built in the 1980s. It was a nice place with a skating rink right in front of the Willard Hotel. But when we went forward in this competition, 35 years later, this park was Large scale It was in disrepair. It was full of ruins and garbage. Which is shocking, but maybe it’s not so shocking because it’s 150 yards from the White House. It’s like a pile of garbage. So something had to be done.
And Joseph’s work, Joe Weishaar’s work, was the closest of the 360 teams to preserving the framework and structure of the city park. And the brief was very specific: We have to create a monument that excites people. and We need to maintain that city park, and he maintained the most city park out of 360 teams.
On the other hand, after I attended the two meetings, Edwin Fountain, who runs the Centennial Committee, told me that he really liked the Grant Memorial in front of the Capitol, done by the sculptor Shrady. I took that to heart and went and saw it, and was very intrigued.
And I would say this is the best sculpture this country has ever made. Have It’s a sculpture made on American soil. It’s a work of a different generation. It’s an artillery wagon being pulled by horses through the mud. It’s a very dynamic, emotive piece. And it’s exciting. It’s an exciting sculpture because as you walk around it, this view opens up and you’re drawn in. And it creates a chemical reaction in your body. That’s the definition of visceral.
So I thought, “Wow, I need to change the way I work.” I was working from a very elegant, aesthetic, esoteric foundation, like Greek and Roman sculpture. So my work was very structural, very quiet, not very dramatic.
So I entered the contest with a very dramatic painting, Joe used the computer to draw a map of the wall, and we painted some figures on the wall, and they loved the idea, and that was it.
Well, I took that photo and then I had to completely transform it over the next year. I took 12,000 photos with models, worked on it over and over, and then I went back to Washington and met with the Centennial Committee. They were all lawyers, and they weren’t arts-based, but they had an idea of where they wanted to go.
This has been a difficult and challenging process. and You understand someone, but they don’t understand you, and you don’t understand them. We’re in completely different worlds. Artists and lawyers are in different parts of the planet. So we worked together, which I think is rare.
And the other thing that doesn’t happen often is that most artists, I’m not blaming them here, just do what the client says because they need to make a living. I didn’t do that. I led a team. I said, “This is how it should be.” And we argued a lot. And I kept the vision that we needed to move forward.
And I stuck to that vision because I knew I was doing the right thing because I’d done it so many times. It wasn’t like I came up with the first one and it was like, “Yeah, this is good.” I kept getting criticized as I was presenting, and then a panel of lawyers would say, “Hey, we don’t like the way you’re doing it.” this This needs to change.”
I did some sculptural transformations that would have been very challenging for other artists. I pushed myself to the limits of my creativity.
And this sculpture had to go through the Fine Arts Commission, which was very difficult. They had been holding up the Eisenhower Memorial for 15 years. Yes, it’s trash. But they We For a year and a half they knew nothing about sculpture. They were all landscape gardeners.
The challenges there, and the fact that they were in favor of preserving the park, were again an obstacle for us, and we eventually got over it.
And then after this, it’s, “I have to sculpt this.” It’s a Herculean act. It’s a hero’s journey in itself.
