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Mississippi River Sculpture Park

Emma Big Bear, Special Edition February, 2011


Emma Big Bear Celebration-
Next-to-the-Last Step

The MRSP Board of Directors is planning a celebration of the life
of Emma Big Bear by installing her life-size bronze sculpture in the
Mississippi River Sculpture Park in July, 2011, on what would be her
142
nd
birthday.
The Ho-Chunk basket weaver, who lived across the Mississippi
in Marquette, Iowa, and is remembered by many in the area, will be the
first 20th Century figure in the Sculpture Park. But we can get her to
the park for her birthday only if we can deliver her to the foundry in
Milwaukee by March 1, along with enough money to pay the bill. (If you
wonder why the process takes such a long time, see the article that
follows this one.)
Patrick and Janet Leamy are generously offering to match, dollar
for dollar, all funds collected for the Emma Big Bear sculpture up to
$25,000.00. The $50,000 total will pay for the final bronze casting and
the last step, the installation of the life-size statue in the Sculpture
The maquette, a miniature of the lif e-size statue
Park.
Contributions are coming in, but we still have a way to go to reach
our $25,000 half of the match. Anything you can add to the total to
speed Emma Big Bear on her way will be greatly appreciated.
Write your check to "Mississippi River Sculpture Park" and mark
the note "Emma Big Bear match." Then mail it to:
Mississippi River Sculpture Park
PO Box 395
Prairie du Chien, WI 53821.





Emma Big Bear Goes
From Blue to Bronze

If you've been keeping up with the
transition of Emma Big Bear from
small maquette to life-size bronze,
the picture at the top of this
newsletter probably surprised you.
Blue Emma is almost the final
step in the journey. She's the result
of work done in Belmont, California.
A technician did computer scans to
enlarge the maquette's image and
then laser cut blue extruded
Styrofoam to produce the full-size,
three-dimensional model that you saw in the picture.
When the blue model arrived at Florence Bird's studio, she spent about a
month covering it with brown plasteline modeling clay, then doing the final sculpting by
refining the image, making sure of the features of Emma's portrait, and adding details
such as the bead work and moccasins. Florence used foam to construct the full-size
basket that you first saw in the maquette, and covered it with plasteline clay to sculpt
the detail.
With the work finished and the money available, Florence will transport the
enlarged clay-covered sculpture to the Milwaukee foundry for the lost wax bronze
casting process. This next-to-last destination in Emma's journey will take nearly four
months because it involves multiple molds, wax casting, refining, kiln burnout, bronze
melt and casting, plus sand blasting and welding together the pieces and final
cleaning and application of the patina (color). The basket will be cast separately and
mounted separately on the concrete base in the sculpture park. Both pieces will be
anchored permanently with one-inch diameter threaded steel rods.
The flooding on St. Feriole Island last fall proved once again that the bronze
statues in the park are an enduring legacy.
But Emma Big Bear can only join the four statues already in the park if you help
us make her journey happen.

If you'd like more information on the process or an update on how close we are to
meeting the deadline for Emma's birthday celebration, contact Florence Bird at 608-
326-5333 or e-mail her at florencebird@centurylink.net.


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Mississippi River Sculpture Park | P.O. Box 395 | Prairie du Chien | WI | 53821