Beth Gipe, owner of Legacy Fine Art Gallery, is shown next to a sculpture by the artist Jeanfo in her gallery.
Sculptor Benjamin Victor, who is currently in Little Rock working on his fourth statue to go in the National Statuary Hall Collection, will be at Legacy Fine Art Gallery in Hot Springs on Friday to give a behind-the-scenes update on the progress of the work, a statue of civil rights icon Daisy Bates.
Victor, who previously created statues of Nevada's Sarah Winnemucca, Iowa's Norman Borlaug and Nebraska's Standing Bear for the collection, will bring a maquette of the Bates sculpture to show on the opening day of Arts & The Park.
"He will be here visiting, sharing, showing how he's doing the work, sharing what's going on. Sharing the process on how to get a piece into the Statuary Hall," said Beth Gipe, owner of Legacy Fine Art Gallery.
Victor will also unveil a maquette of the piece at 7:30 p.m. Friday "for the city to see," she said, noting he is bringing the maquette instead of the actual statue due to the sculpture's size.
"A maquette is a study. It's a small piece. This piece is going to stand 11 feet tall. I think the base is 3 feet. So the maquette is just a small study, because I can't get an 11-foot piece in the gallery without a garage," Gipe said.
"Oh my gosh, wait till you see it. There's nothing like it. The emotion that he creates in this Daisy Bates piece, it will move you. It's spectacular," she said.
After the presentation, Victor will be available so "anyone can talk to him and ask any questions you want," Gipe said, noting she was involved in selecting Victor for the Bates project.
In March of 2020, Gipe and some friends were invited to National Statuary Hall by U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-District 4, and he "gave us the tour and then Statuary Hall was shut down the next day for COVID," she said.
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"I came home, and was home probably a couple of months and I got a call from our congressman asking me if I would be willing to sit on the board for the Commissioner's Arts and Grounds Commission for the state here, and that for John Thurston who appointed me, and I said yes," Gipe said.
Each state gets to have two statues of important figures to represent their state. Gipe said the board had already decided to replace the two Arkansas statues of James Paul Clarke and Uriah M. Rose with statues of singer Johnny Cash and Bates.
"And it happened to be that we were in the middle of choosing an artist to replace the art that was in the Capital at Statuary Hall, and we were picking the artists," she said, "and we picked Benjamin Victor."
Victor will first appear at a private event at the gallery at 5:30 p.m. Friday, then the gallery will open to the general public at 7:30 p.m., and will be open until 9 p.m.
Gipe said Victor is currently in Arkansas "with the actual piece and he is sculpting at UALR."
The process of selecting Victor to make the artwork took about a year and a half.
"We interviewed him many, many times. There's 10 of us on the board of the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission. We interviewed him many, many times. We probably looked at over 150 artists," Gipe said, noting "his maquette was the best."
"One, I liked the artist a lot. Down-to-earth, a really good guy. Actually from my hometown in Bakersfield, California, didn't hurt, but he's so gifted. His work is so realistic," she said.
"He takes the time to research the artist and really identify with who that artist was and who that person was and Daisy Bates was an artist, she was, in her own right. She did so many things, she was a publisher, she did so many things, and he just connects beautifully with his subject matter, so we really, really liked him."
Gipe said it is exciting to have Victor's work in her gallery. "He was 25 when he put (his) first piece in the Statuary Hall. He's one of the youngest artists to ever done that," she said.
Beth Gipe, owner of Legacy Fine Art Gallery, stands next to a piece of art in her gallery. - Photo by Tanner Newton of The Sentinel-Record