Sculptor takes stand for veterans

TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Sculptor Lee Leuning adjusts the position of “Stand for the Flag” on its pedestal in downtown Maryville before the figure of a saluting veteran was welded into place Wednesday morning. The artwork is one of three acquired through the Maryville Public Art Committee for installation on the courthouse square.

The first two of three new public art installations took place on the Maryville square Wednesday as works by the South Dakota sculpture team of Lee Leuning and Sherri Treeby and Georgia artist Greg Johnson were installed on Main Street and Third street.

Lee Leuning was in town to supervise the installations, which included the Leuning/Treeby piece “Stand For the Flag,” a representational work depicting a be-medaled, bearded veteran, with one leg amputated, leaning on a crutch and saluting.

Leuning angled the sculpture on its Third Street pedestal so that the veteran appears to be saluting the U.S. flag across the street on the southwest lawn of the Nodaway County courthouse.

“He’s the guy who is standing up as the color guard marches by and other people stay in their lawn chairs,” said Leuning, who said the figure is modeled on of a friend of his who served in Vietnam as a Navy SEAL.

The friend still has both his legs, said Leuning, who nevertheless decided a little artistic license was acceptable in order to make a point about the sacrifices soldiers make in order to serve their country.

“This is a guy who every day since (the Battle of) Khe Sanh (in Vietnam) wakes up and is reminded of that bad day,” Leuning said of the everyman veteran represented by the statue. “For him it wasn’t just one afternoon. It’s the rest of his life.”

Though Leuning is not himself a veteran, he comes from a military family, and his son is a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force who has flown missions in the Middle East.

His father, a Navy man, piloted a Higgins boat landing craft in the Pacific theater during World War II, and his brother John, who died in 2012 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, served as a Marine in Vietnam.

Considering his family background, it is not surprising that “Stand For the Flag” is not Leuning’s first work dealing with the themes of patriotism and sacrifice. The artist also created a figure that was incorporated into the South Dakota Vietnam War Memorial in the state capital of Pierre.

Though he has become a noted regional sculptor, Leuning has a somewhat unusual background for an artist. After earning a degree in wildlife biology from South Dakota State University in 1974, he went to work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before becoming a wildlife officer in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.

He was selected as the Wildlife Officer of the Year in 1982 and in the mid-1980s worked as an undercover officer in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park region combating poachers who were illegally harvesting black bears in order to sell their gallbladders, bile from which is used as a folk medicine ingredient in parts of Asia.

Returning to South Dakota, Leuning started taking evening art classes at Northern State University while continuing to work as a state wildlife officer. He retired in 2002 and now works full time as a sculptor, creating works in bronze with his collaborator Treeby.

The second sculpture installed Wednesday, Johnson’s “Catching the Wind,” is another representational work that depicts a girl in cutoff overalls flying a diamond-shaped kite.

A third work, which will soon be installed on the Fourth Street plinth, is a whimsical rendition of Humpty Dumpty. Standing 44 inches high, the bronze statue, titled “Egghead,” was created by Minneapolis, Minnesota, sculptor Kimber Fiebiger.

This is the third year works by professional artists have been placed on the square through an agreement between the city of Maryville, represented by the volunteer Maryville Public Art Committee, and the SculptureOne organization, which also provides objects for the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, SculptureWalk.

According to the deal now in place, Maryville can receive up to 10 artworks a year for $2,000 per sculpture. The pieces remain on display for 12 months before being replaced each spring.

The program is funded with local tax dollars and appears as a line item in the municipal budget.

In addition to the courthouse square, MPAC has also proposed expanding the program to include installations along the newly streetscaped West Fourth Street corridor stretching between downtown and Northwest Missouri State University.