Grandma Gatewood Statue Project | Brainstorming

Friday night was Grandma Gatewood night at my studio. I invited some members of The Houston Women’s Hiking group. Everyone has been so encouraging on the group. They have been posting their stories about the AT and sharing their thoughts on Grandma Gatewood, her pose, clothes, etc.

Wanting to keep them in the loop, I opened my studio to talk about creating a life-size sculpture and brainstorm some poses. I had already put a call out for models for the statue. These people will dress like her and pose in the pose we decide, and I can take reference photographs all around the model. Reference photos will help me with the folds, sculpting, and proportions.

After several poses, I wondered, “what if we took her out of the traditional ‘posed’ view that we see her in when she is captured by photographers, or her hike is interrupted by well meaning people? “What if we had her going up?” Could we put her on a slight berm where she is going up and have some bronze rocks at her feet, like she is on the trail? I love the idea that she is moving, because from what I have read, Grandma Gatewood did not sit still. I also want to catch her in her private time, maybe contemplating the greatness of the AT or listening to a bird. Hikers know what I am talking about. Also, if we get her hiking and put it on a berm, then others can join her in the hike for the perfect photo opportunity. It was a productive evening, though we broke the stick three times. We are still working out the design. Now on to finding clothes for my model. And of course fundraising. We still need to raise the funds for this project.

We have a lot of money to raise. Please help us by sharing our posts from this blog, and talking on your social media about the Grandma Gatewood Statue Project. Oh, and you can donate through the Grandma Gatewood Statue Project Go Fund Me page.

Meanwhile, Paul Maxwell went to Trail Days to talk about the sculpture—more on that in the following posts.