By Bob Ray Sanders
bobray@ star-telegram.com
It's not quite the shootout at the O.K. Corral, but it is an old-fashioned Western standoff involving a gun.
And somebody -- Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday or the Fort Worth Arts Council -- ought to be able to stop it.
The controversy centers on a sculpture more than eight years in the making that was to be installed this month at a special location on North Main Street and Central and Ellis avenues.
Vaquero de Fort Worth, a 10-foot-tall bronze sculpture of a sombrero-wearing Hispanic cowboy mounted on a horse, is a majestic piece that would fit perfectly on the spot leading to the historic Fort Worth Stockyards. The area has already been landscaped and otherwise prepared to receive it.
Although the $250,000 sculpture is complete -- at least in the artists' minds -- its installation is being delayed because of a dispute among the sculptors, the project committee and Fort Worth Arts Council.
The main problem is that the artists added a gun and bullet belt to the figure without the permission of the committee and against its expressed wishes.
Without getting into all the he said/he said rhetoric, the Vaquero Project Core Committee decided at the outset that the horseman would not be armed because members believed that most "cowmen" (the literal translation of vaquero) did not use weapons when working the ranches in Mexico and the United States except for a few short "wild West" years.
Justice of the Peace Manuel Valdez, the committee chairman, said they also were trying to avoid the "bandito" stereotype.
"We were shooting for a cowman -- an honorable, hardworking laborer. ... We didn't want a Hollywood cowboy," he said.
Renowned Dallas artists David S. Newton and Tomas Bustos, after extensive research, determined that the vaquero was often depicted as carrying a weapon and "that a gun was an important part of any working cowboys' toolkit of that day. Cowboys on the open range were expected as part of their profession to protect the herd from predators such as wolves, coyotes, rattlesnakes, cougars and small animals that carried rabies, etc."
They added the holstered pistol and belt, which Valdez and another committee member saw for the first time last year at a reception in Dallas where a full-size clay model of the sculpture was on display. Valdez said he mentioned the "problem" to Bustos that night and called Newton about it the following morning.
Newton said he told Valdez that he and Bustos would be glad to talk about changes with the committee, and a meeting was supposed to have been set up for that purpose. It never occurred. Valdez said the committee never got around to discussing it, but its charge about "no gun" was clear.
Committee members did see the work in progress early this year at an Azle foundry, but Valdez said it was in about 100 pieces and he didn't notice the gun. Newton said that because the committee didn't bring it up again, he thought everything was settled.
After the piece was finished in April, objections were raised. The artists received a letter from the city attorney's office asking that they "cease any and all work" on the project. They were urged to appear at the May arts commission meeting to explain the changes. The commission voted not to accept the piece with the altered design and the city refused to pay any more money unless the artists modified the sculpture. They have refused.
While Valdez says "it's a beautiful piece," he also objects to a brand (using the artists' initials) on the horse, Bustos' name engraved on the saddle horn and the artists' names and copyright symbol on one of the hoofs.
Newton insists that they were instructed not to include a copyright ranch brand, which is why they created one.
To remove the gun and belt, the middle section of the rider's torso would have to be cut out. A new section would have to be sculpted and cast into bronze at a cost of about $20,000, according to Newton. The city's stop-payment order means that the foundry is still owed $18,500 and the artists $12,000.
It is time for the vaquero committee, the arts commission and the artists to get together to resolve this issue. This sculpture representing a noble character of our history is too important to sit in a foundry when it should be greeting visitors from its assigned place on the north side.
I recommend leaving the gun and bullet belt. The artists should remove the brand and Bustos' name from the saddle horn, which can be done for around $1,000. The text on the plaques already designed for the monument can put everything, including the gun, in context.
This sculpture was envisioned as a unifying symbol because the original idea came from an Anglo and a Hispanic (former City Councilman Jim Lane and former Assistant City Manager Ramon Guajardo); the two artists, Newton and Bustos, are black and Hispanic respectively.
Let's get the unity back. Stop the bickering, come together and fix this thing.
Bob Ray Sanders' column appears Sundays and Wednesdays.817-390-7775
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