BOISE, Idaho — First, he researches, then sculptor and artist Benjamin Victor brings a moment in time to life.
“I never would have guessed that I’d be in this place where I get to do all these pieces for the U.S. Capitol, and for the Smithsonian, and all these institutions that I love to represent,” Victor said. “It's just been just a joy.”
Victor is the only living artist to have three works in the U.S. Capitol and he lives in Boise. He was first introduced to the art world and inspired by his grandma, who was an art professor and art teacher, but he didn't take up sculpture until he was in college.
“I just picked up the clay and I just knew like, this is the media for me,” Victor said. “I've really been blessed to do a lot of very inspirational projects around the country.”
Currently, he has three pieces in the Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol, but he’ll soon have a fourth.
“Daisy Bates is done, but she's not installed yet,” Victor said.
Daisy Bates is the American civil rights activist, journalist and publisher who documented the battle to end segregation in Arkansas.
“We're just waiting for the speaker's office to give us a date,” Victor said. “We're hopeful that it'll be this spring.”
Just this past October, Victor’s sculpture of Olympian Muffy Davis was also unveiled.
“Muffy is totally awesome,” Victor said. “She's just a wonderful person that lives here in Idaho, and she's part of the greater women's Olympic monument in Sun Valley, Idaho. Muffy, of course, was a gold medalist in downhill skiing and in the hand bike as a Paralympian and so she's an awesome person to know and an inspirational story. It was really an honor to get to do her statue.”
Victor added they are excited about the next ones because it's going to be all female Olympians from Idaho. He hopes this project will inspire the next generation, like his daughters.
“I hope they look up to these heroes and take something from their character and personality, whether it's their work ethic, or their ability to stick to it in a sport, or their positivity – or even as Muffy did – going on in politics later,” Victor said.
He also just got the news that he'll be working on a sculpture of a famous country singer.
“I received the commission to do the sculpture of Merle Haggard in Muskogee, Oklahoma," Victor said. "Everybody knows the song 'Okie from Muskogee' and it's just awesome. I was actually born in the same hospital that Merle was born in and grew up in the same town that he grew up in.”
Victor is also the artist behind the sculpture for Carrie French, the first Idaho woman killed in combat. The group behind the sculpture has raised all of needed money, and Victor is now ready to finish up the clay, do the molds and then cast it in bronze. He told KTVB he can't wait until it's done and he can see the look on French’s mother’s face.
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