SCULPTOR’S LOSS CAN’T KEEP DOWN HIS BRONZE
When California sculptor Riis Burwell could finally get back to the charred remains of his studio after last year’s wildfires abated, there wasn’t much left to salvage.
The fires leveled his Santa Rosa studio and the $250,000 of equipment he accumulated over 30 years, but out of the ashes he was able to salvage the bronze “Spirit Form Emerging” sculpture that was destined for La Posada.
On Tuesday, Burwell unveiled the sculpture in a ceremony outside the senior living community behind The Gardens Mall.
“I’m kind of overwhelmed by the outpouring of support,” in getting the project done, he said.
The 12 1/2-foot, 1,200-pound bronze sculpture is one in a series of “Spirit Form Emerging” sculptures Burwell began after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The commission was dedicated to the more than 2,000 people who perished when the twin towers fell.
The artwork is visible from Gardens Parkway. La Posada was required to either create an art piece or pay into the city’s Art in Public Places Fund because of construction of new apartment homes.
La Posada chose to create the sculpture and pay into the fund for an artistic bus shelter. No tax dollars pay for public art in Palm Beach Gardens.
Burwell started working on La Posada’s sculpture about a week before the fire, he said. It took a lot of time to unearth it from the debris, and he didn’t know if it would even be salvageable.
“Thankfully and miraculously, it was,” he said. “The piece is a chunk of me. I have a lot invested in it.”
Embers burned the deck of his wooden home atop a hill, but the house survived the blaze. Burwell, his wife and dog evacuated in a hurry, first to a shopping center and then to a hotel 40 miles away.
“I looked out my bedroom window and the whole ridge across the way was fire,” he said. The flames “were coming very quickly.”
They stayed with family for a week-and-a-half until they were allowed back inside their home.
It took Burwell six months to finish La Posada’s sculpture. Ordinarily, it would have taken two or three months, he said.
He was faced with the daunting prospect of getting back to work again without a studio. It was difficult to accept that the studio he built 30 years ago was suddenly gone.
The Voigt Family Sculpture Foundation stepped in, offering a facility it has for visiting artists. Burwell is working there while he finishes the design for a new studio.
He said “it’s a thrill” that the sculpture will be at La Posada. It’s built to withstand 250 mph winds — enough to endure any hurricane that comes this way.
“This piece is never going anywhere,” Burwell said. “It’s incredibly sturdy.”