Women Veterans honored in Del City Bronzes by Luther Sculptor

By Darl DeVault
Special to Guthrie News Page

More than 60 million Americans have served in our military since Nov 10, 1775, with 21.8 million veterans alive today who made the needed sacrifices to keep us free. On Veterans Day Wednesday, many Oklahomans may have missed the fact that now the largest veteran’s monument in our country honoring women veterans is in Del City.

Amidst Oklahoma’s intense support of our veterans, a new monument to the sacrifice made to protect our country by its women soldiers was unveiled last Veterans’ Day at Patriot Park. What is believed to be our nation’s largest tribute to women veterans and America’s first inclusive Women’s Veteran Monument was dedicated. The proud Del City leaders invited the world to stop by and honor all American veterans.

Sculpted by Luther, Okla. artist Joel Randell, the monument has struck a chord with Oklahoma veterans. According to numbers released in 2014 from the Pentagon, females make up about 14.6 percent of the military, with more women serving in the Army.

One Oklahoma combat veteran witnessed firsthand how a fellow female soldier made the ultimate sacrifice in combat and will never forget it.

Eleanor McDaniel, president of the Lawton-Fort Sill Chapter of the Oklahoma Women’s Veteran Organization, recalled Army Spec. Lori Piestewa, killed in action in March 2003. Piestewa was the first Native American woman killed in action while serving in the Armed Forces. McDaniel, also a Native American, said the new monument honors those sacrifices of all military women, whether in combat or during peacetime.

“This monument is well deserved and long overdue,” McDaniel said in 2014. “Other communities should follow the example. Recognition of this magnitude for our women in the military is uncommon, but many extraordinary women have served and deserve that recognition. I am deeply grateful to the people of Del City and all those that made it possible to recognize and honor the service and sacrifice of all the women of the U.S. Armed Forces.”

And the timing couldn’t have been better, as the U.S. Air Force announced it is working to open all jobs to women—America’s first inclusive women’s veteran monument at a time when the services recognize the importance of women’s service.

In the year since its unveiling the new public art has also engaged the art community. Oklahoma’s most famous illustrator and fine art painter, Mike Wimmer, sought out the monument as a visitor.

“Joel Randell celebrates the poise, dignity and strength of the women serving in our Armed Forces,” Wimmer said. “This latest national caliber patriotic expression of common language of figurative realism is apropos to give honor to the common women who stand up with uncommon valor to serve and protect their nation, community and family. The artist captured every figurative detail in meticulously representing and honoring the achievements of real women in their chosen branch of military service.”

Del City Manager Mark Edwards spoke to the press about the future on dedication day in 2014. “The real legacy will be serving all those veterans who make that one block exit from one of your nation’s busiest interstates (I-40) to be honored by what we have created here for them,” Edwards said. “We dedicate this midday, yet it is so well lit, it will attract visitors because we cover the entire monument in lights so that it stands out respectfully at night.”

The polished black granite and small fountains water-feature monument depicts five slightly-larger-than-life uniformed women in bronze with an additional National Guard uniformed woman speaking with a little girl inquiring when she can serve.

The mother and daughter Randell designed are sitting at a reflecting pool prior to the mother’s departure to serve her country as Army National Guard, since they are normally the first to deploy. The centerpiece is the servicewomen in intricately correct dress uniforms and caps facing outward holding hands, representing strength and unity between them to form a stronghold of Liberty around an American flag.

Small water fountains arise at their feet to empower a water-feature that flows through a peaceful channel down to the nearby reflecting pool.

Del City is an eight square mile community created in 1948 northwest of Tinker Air Force Base, where 25,000 employees work at the largest military facility of its kind since 1948, now hosting Navy personnel as well.

Being guided by an all-woman committee of eight veterans, artist Randell began working on the project in May 2013. Recruited to help with the $1.5 million project in 2012, the committee spent three years planning the monument.

Stressing it is a monument to those who take the oath to serve their country and not a memorial to those who have died, Del City citizens and the leaders they selected have made a strong statement that women veterans deserve honors with this monument. By depicting youth conversing with a role model the monument also conveys the multigenerational relationship between women who have served and now younger generations.

Architects Terry J. and Geoff Parker from Architecture Incorporated, P.C designed the setting for the seven statues that make up the monument. “We saw the polished black granite monument setting as a sequence of spaces offering a 165-foot “carved out path” with gently rising walls, respectfully posed sculptures surrounding an American flag and 84-foot peaceful water-feature providing the visitor a memorable experience,” architect Terry J. Parker said. “The focal point is the five slightly larger than life- size bronze statues and their corresponding plaques that stand atop an elevated granite flag platform with small fountain water-features where water cascades down from and flows into a channel to a small reflecting pool that is surrounded by a bench wall with the seated sculptures of mother and child.”

With owner John Free Jr. supervising, The Bronze Horse Foundry in Pawhuska, Okla., cast the bronze figures for the monument, as they have for the majority of Randell’s work in bronze. The foundry in Osage County that has already made its mark nationally with Oklahoma sculptures.

This career-defining largest project at age 40 validated Randell’s classical honorific sculpting efforts to depict patriotic themes, as he undertook his sixth major military monument in sculpting the lady veterans. The monument in Del City more than doubled his patriotic figure sculpting count by depicting seven figures. The completion of this large tribute to America’s women veterans adds momentum as Randell moves to the forefront of designing and sculpting contemporary figurative patriotic themes in bronze.

“These seven patriotic figures in one monument are really something,” Free said after installing the statues. “Joel Randell is making great strides now as a nationally known artist who has a great reputation as a researcher as well. People really like that he digs in and researches their subjects so strongly for accuracy, because this bronze art is going to be around forever.”

Patriot Park has grown since its inception on Veterans Day in 1995, when the city built the first monument to honor all of Del City’s war dead since World War II. On Veterans Day 2008, city leaders dedicated the Fallen Soldier Battle Cross to honor those veterans who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan Conflicts. On Veterans Day 2010, the city unveiled the Vietnam War artwork and soldier mausoleum designed by Terry and Geoff Parker as a repository for artifacts left at the scaled-down Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall when it travelled throughout Oklahoma.

On Veterans Day 2011, organizers dedicated the Blue Star Mothers Memorial at Patriot Park. The Blue Star Mothers of America is a congressionally chartered Veterans Service Organization of women who provide support for active duty service personnel, promotes patriotism, and assists other veterans’ organizations.

Locally, Randell also designed and sculpted the namesake in bronze for the Major Charles B. Hall Memorial Airpark in 2007. It is located at the Air Depot Blvd. exit on I-40 in Oklahoma City. The park just outside Tinker AFB is named for Maj. Hall, a Tuskegee Airman and highly decorated pilot from the 99th Pursuit Squadron.

Nationally, in August, in Walker, Minn., the dedication of the final seven bronze statues of the Circle of Time monument ended an eight-year project while serving as a signpost of Randell’s preeminence in sculpting in bronze in America.

Those new statues also included a personal favorite for the University of Central Oklahoma art education graduate that harkened back to Randell’s first exposure to bronze sculpting as a youth in Oklahoma. The new statues dedicated were a missionary, educator, doctor, resorter, homesteader, Ojibwe and a WW I doughboy — a term widely used to describe a U.S. Army infantryman. That doughboy is a dream come true for Randell, as a much bigger version in Oklahoma sparked his interest in sculpting in his youth.

“I am so happy to be here and thank you for allowing me to be a part of this,” Randell said at the dedication in Minnesota. “I believe with the Circle of Time that there are young people, teenagers and beyond who will come here and interact with these pieces, with the kids inspired to study and learn.”

While the Doughboy is the sole patriotic depiction in this installation, it speaks to Randell’s interest and status as a sculptor.

The 13 statues that make up the Circle of Time allowed Randell to move to the forefront as one of Americas most prolific sculptors in bronze in both bas-relief and freestanding or in-the-round sculptures. The women veteran statues in Del City also heralded Randell as one of the most productive sculptors in contemporary patriotic themes in bronze in America. These two career-defining large projects, at age 41, validate Randell’s extra efforts to constantly hone his sculpting skills and research his subjects.

The Circle of Time project began in 2008, with the artist interpreting the art, culture and history of the Leech Lake area with an installation of the first six statues on the Fourth of July in 2011.

The first round of statues depicted humans from six different periods in the history of the Leech Lake Area: Early Man, the Ojibwe People, a Fur Trader, a Lumberman, a Fisherman, and a modern-day Family of Four. The final seven statues represent people through time who have lived in the area beginning with Early Man in the Ice Age up to modern times.

Randell, who lives with his wife and three children in Luther, Okla., realized early in his career that creating classical figurative sculpture represents his pinnacle of ambition in the realm of art and has been striving to reach that pinnacle ever since.

In 2000, Randell began a career as a bas-relief portraitures and seal designer which results in bronze two-dimensional portraits in which the figure projects out only a tiny bit from a flat background to form a commemorative or awards plaque. He began work with A.R.K. Ramos Foundry & Manufacturing Company Inc. in Oklahoma City as one of two contract sculptors.

He developed what he considers a proprietary process to speed his ability to capture any subject’s likeness in bas-relief. He says his treatments using this method are fine art since he is putting as much thought into the design as anything individually commissioned.

Historically seen as commercial art rather than fine art, Ramos’ president David Wommer championed Randell’s talent at the level of fine art throughout the industry. A.R.K. Ramos has been casting sculpted relief emblems, portraits and pictorials, as well as plaques, seals for 70 years.This glowing endorsement from Wommer resulted in Randell’s 15-year career, and many bas-relief treatments of notable individuals placed at prominent institutions nationwide along with many seals and larger bas-relief treatments in bronze.

“I’ve done hundreds of bas reliefs, from all different time periods and people of different ages and backgrounds, for a variety of customers across the country,” Randell said. “This gives me an advantage because most artists don’t have the ability to hone their skills as I do, by always striving to create exact likenesses,” Randell said. “You benefit from the feedback that comes in the process of making the bas relief more like the person it is honoring. This keeps me mindful of areas I need to work on more, such as the topography of the human face.”

By interacting with subjects and striving to capture their likeness in more than 600 bas relief works, Randell has sharpened his artist’s eye for authenticity and expression. These smaller creative endeavors give him the confidence to tackle larger, more complex projects.

“Nothing shapes your resolve to provide perfection than to step away from a really big project with so many details to sharpen your skills in bronze in bas relief,” Randell said. “It serves to remind you later that even the smallest detail in that larger project deserves your utmost attention. This has worked well for me as my horizons have increased to a national scope as a sculptor. When I return to the larger project I seem to have a renewed vigor to capture that essence important in the work.”

Randell married his wife Melissa in 1997. The family, Hannah, 17, Reuben, 14, and Aaron, 12, moved to a small acreage in rural Luther in 2011, so the artist could build a larger studio.

Randell is fulfilling a role established many centuries ago of the classical honorific sculptor. From the second to seventh century people commissioned honorific sculptures of their loved ones for courtyards and public areas. These bas-reliefs Randell creates are a more contemporary form of that tribute. And that commercial versus fine art line is blurred when considering the size and scope of some of the treatments. A bas-relief Randell did in 2012 for the Oklahoma Bankers Association features a portrait twice life size.

“I wish I could have created a much bigger, three-dimensional piece from all those bas relief studies I created,” Randell said. “But I learn more about sculpting and hone my skill set from every instance of creating a likeness in bronze.”

His passion for creating classical honorific sculptures in bronze has grown to include everything associated with being an artist. He has prided himself in exhaustively researching his historical commissions to be sure the depiction is correct. Fortunate to be able to focus solely on his art since 2002, he has already, at age 41, been able achieve many short-term goals while establishing a national reputation striving for his long-term goals.

In learning to negotiate all things associated with being an artist, Randell has created a reputation for professionalism in all his endeavors so that he is able to maximize his opportunities.

Inheriting an artistic talent only primed the pump—it has been his energy expended to learn and his professionalism as an independent business person in the art world that has allowed him to be a successful artist.

Randell is working toward installing another large-scale bronze sculpture in December in Tampa, Fla. This project is an honorific eight-foot figure of the late Perry Harvey Sr., longtime president of the International Longshoreman’s Association Local 1402 and local civil rights leader. This heroic one and a quarter life-size bronze statue will stand in the newly renovated Perry Harvey Sr. Park near downtown Tampa.