Public Art Initiative Has
Something For Everyone
And Says A Lot About Our Town!
There are reports that Daniel Boone liked to sing and talk to himself when he was alone on extended hunting trips. He did so despite the danger of revealing his location to any hostile Indians, just to hear another voice. Like any of us under similar circumstances, he was probably lonely. Sometimes it’s these little anecdotes that help us remember our larger than life-size heroes were also human.
St. Charles is blessed with having been home to many such famous people. I felt it was time we honored a few of these individuals, but in a way that reminds us they were real people…that there was a time when you could walk up to a man like Daniel Boone and shake his hand.
Tuesday night the City Council gave preliminary approval to a two pronged public art initiative. The first part of the initiative is a multiyear project to recognize at least six of our hometown heroes. Over the next six years, the City will commission one life-size bronze statue per year of various individuals from our early history.
A national hero like Daniel Boone seemed a good place to start. While the Nathan Boone Home has been the focus of Daniel’s life in our county, the elderly Boone was a familiar sight in our village as well. Boone could be seen transporting prisoners here as syndic (a combination Justice of the Peace and militia officer under the Spanish), moving furs downstream by boat to sell and coming here to pick up supplies. Boone also lived in St. Charles for a time, though the location of the residence is unknown. In 1809, one of his grandsons by Nathan, James Boone, was sent to school in St. Charles and boarded here in the home of a Frenchman. The young boy got so homesick that Daniel Boone and his wife rented a room in the village and had their grandson stay with them while he attended the school.
The concept is for the statue to be just as you would have seen Daniel Boone on the streets of St. Charles at that time. The series of statues aren’t meant to be placed on a pedestal, but eye level and approachable. The fourteen-foot tall statues of Lewis & Clark are perfect for their setting, but not every work of public art has to be of monumental size. We want visitors to be able to imagine what life was like when men and women like Boone brushed the dust from their clothes, wiped the sweat off their brow and sat down in the shade of tree.
The first commission will take close to a year to complete. A preliminary list for future years would include, Jean Baptist du Sable, Saint Phillipine Duchesne, Mary Easton Sibley, Alexander McNair and James McKay. Others could be honored in later years.
I mentioned the public art initiative was two pronged. The second part is to sponsor an annual outdoor art competition for sculptors through the Foundry Art Center. Ten winners would be selected and after an initial showing at the Foundry, the works would be put on display at ten public places around town for a year.
During that year the works would be listed on the Foundry’s web site for sale, but can not be removed until the end of the year, when a fresh batch of winners will replace them. The winners will be juried and appropriate safeguards against anything offensive will be in place. This same model is being used successfully in a town in Michigan, which has gained quite a reputation as a center for the arts with its “Art Round Town” program.
In that community, over the years, favorite pieces were bought by local businesses and philanthropists to grace other sites. Councilman John Gieseke has suggested that pieces could also be purchased and donated to an eventual sculpture park somewhere in the community. Through the year, residents and visitors would be able to vote on their favorite through the web site or in person at the Foundry. A “People’s Choice” award could then be given out at the end of the year, perhaps with prize donations from sponsoring businesses.
I’m excited about the prospects for these two programs. Public art says a lot about a community. It is also one of the great traditions of Western Culture. Greek sculptor Polyclitus was hailed by a famed Roman writer as having “perfected” the art four hundred years after his death. He also apparently knew how to handle the art critics of his day.
One story goes that Polycritus set the critics up by working on two statues at the same time. One he finished according to his own tastes, not listening to the numerous suggestions he was given from visitors to his workshop. For the other statue he took the advice of everyone, and made it conform to their suggestions. When the finished statue was widely panned, especially in comparison with the first, he pointed out (probably with a good measure of satisfaction) how trying to please everyone ended up pleasing no one.
Boone probably would have enjoyed the little joke. “Better mend a fault than find a fault,” he used to say.
