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Sometimes telling a story that already exists is my goal. Sometimes the stories emerge during or as part of creating a piece. Sometimes…both. Chief Friday was both.

Shortly after completing Joseph Antoine Janis, I was commissioned to do a second monumental bronze of a native Arapaho man who lived in the Fort Collins area. I set off to tell his story in metal.

The story of the man
For me, the story behind Chief Friday was both heart-warming and heart-wrenching. Warshinun lived in the Poudre Valley in the early 1800s.  As a young boy, he became separated from his tribe and was lost.  He was discovered on a Friday in May by a frontiersman named Thomas Fitzpatrick, who gave him the English name “Friday.” He was subsequently adopted by Fitzpatrick and went to St. Louis where he received an American education.  During a trip west a few years later, he was recognized by his Arapaho mother and rejoined his tribe in Colorado.

As a speaker of both the Arapaho language and English, Friday became a natural translator. This grew into a more significant role as mediator and peacemaker while hostilities increased between the settlers and the native Americans. He was so effective that the settlers gave him the title of “Chief.” The Arapahos were not happy about this as THEY were the ones who bestowed the title of “Chief.” Friday was forced to go to the reservation later in the 1800s, and he spent the rest of his life at the Pineridge Reservation with the Arapahos. He was a man of duality, part and apart, connected and isolated, all at once.

The story of the creative process
As the interpreter of Chief Friday's story, the challenge for me was how to represent this complex person, his emotional state(s), his ethnicity, and how to extend the meaning of his life through symbols. My first goal was to dedicate myself to capturing two emotions: pride and sadness. I wanted to represent him as a proud man with a unique, cross-cultural history. I also wanted to convey the sadness he must have felt as his native culture was devastated in the late 1800s at the hands of the settlers he'd worked a lifetime to broker peace with. I titled this piece “Caught Between”. Warshinun became Friday became Chief Friday and then resolved his life as Warshinun.

The second challenge was to authentically capture his ethnicity. I had to really LOOK at him—see my subject and measure, measure, measure.

I did something I’d never done before, I sculpted the monumental and the smaller, limited edition side-by-side and surprisingly, it was FUN. I had a pair of calipers calibrated to fit both. If I did the nose on one that I liked, I would replicate it on the other. They informed each other during the sculpting process.

I have to confess: I HATE TO SCULPT EARS. You must make the ears mostly symmetrical and you must position them correctly. People notice if the ears don't look right. Fortunately, I developed a shortcut. I sculpt the first ear in place, replicate it on the same cheek, then scrape the second ear off and apply to the other side of the head.

I did a second thing I’ve never done before; with intention, I created “space” for Friday. I am somewhat familiar with native American rituals and I decided that every time I sculpted, I would conduct a Native American smudging ceremony to show respect to Friday's story and life. Using a smoldering sage bundle and a feather, I smudged (this means wafting the smoke with the feather) both clay sculptures and me in the 7 sacred directions. I believe the smudging helped bring the spirit of Friday into my creative space.

I enjoyed the spirit of Friday as I sculpted away on the small and large versions, but something unusual happened as I finished the two pieces. I had moved the two completed pieces into my garage for the mold maker to pick up, but I almost forgot to sign my name on each clay. So, there I was in the garage finishing the job. The instant I completed the signing, I felt the absence of Friday. He’d been present with me through the sculpting process, and it was noticeable to me when his spirit left.

I made a lot of choices as to how to represent Friday. How was his hair braided? Did he wear western-style shirts? How many feathers would he have? Would three feathers be ok? As I searched for symbols to represent his life, I wanted to add a peace pipe in the crook of his arm. The peace pipe symbolized his efforts as a peacemaker and negotiator.

I wanted to make sure I'd represented Warshinun well and sought out one of his direct descendants. It took me six months to find one by the name of John Goggles. I sent him a photo of the clay pieces and these were his comments, “Lose the peace pipe,” and “You nailed Arapaho.” I was super excited to hear that I captured Friday’s ethnicity. Regarding peace pipes: in the Arapaho culture, peace pipes are sacred objects passed from father to son. They would not be represented in a photo or any other way. I lost the peace pipe.

We had a grand celebration and Native American blessing ceremony when the monumental version was installed at Poudre Valley Plaza in Fort Collins, attended by many of Friday’s direct descendants. I had a conversation with one of his descendants that day - she confirmed that I had honored Warshinun. That made my day, month, and year.

The result of my sculpting of Friday was to realize that the human spirit can come through and help me reflect upon and genuinely represent a real person. I could find a way to honor the human, their unique culture, and their story. I also realized that there are always stories behind the stories I’m trying to tell. Stories upon stories forged in the metal.