ST. GEORGE — St. George unveiled a new sculpture Thursday depicting one of the city’s first pioneer women as part of the City Hall Plaza grand opening. The event also served as the unofficial opening to the St. George Art Festival this weekend.
The bronze sculpture is titled Just One Beautiful Thing, and it depicts early Utah pioneer Wilhelmina Cannon and her husband David Cannon, who are said to have left their home in northern Utah in the mid-1800s to settle in the southern Utah desert.
Wilhelmina Cannon was raised in the “green beauty of Boston,” and the “harsh (southern Utah) land felt barren and hopeless,” according to an inscription that stands near the art piece. Legend also has it that one day, after she pleaded for “just one beautiful thing,” her husband brought her a “delicate sego lily.”
“Its simple beauty renewed her spirit, and she chose to labor here the rest of her long life,” the plaque reads.
The sculpture was created by world-renowned local artist Jerry Anderson, 91, and it depicts David Cannon giving Wilhelmina Cannon a sego lily.
Anderson said he used pictures given to him by the Cannon family as a reference for the sculpture. He said finding a real sego lily in the desert to use as a reference took a little more effort.
“I still needed a sego lily for a model, so I went up on Pine (Valley) Mountain at about 6,000 feet, and there they were, about six of them standing tall at the edge of a cliff waving in the wind,” Anderson recalled. “There were hardly any leaves, but three pedals making up the flower (with) pure white beautiful coloring inside. … They’re hard to find. They live in the desert, and they’re up high. When you see them, you’ll love them because they’re beautiful.”
Anderson compared David Cannon’s gift of the sego lily to a gift he himself received from his wife Fawn Anderson, to whom he has been married for 71 years.
“Everybody gets a sego lily that changes their life,” Anderson said. “When we were young … (Fawn) gave me a paint-by-number set, and when I finished it, it was beautiful. That was the first time I was introduced to art.”
Anderson said it was that gift that made him decide to become an artist, where he studied with other world-renowned artists like Norman Rockwell.
Many of the other speakers at the unveiling event, including Rep. Celeste Maloy, also spoke to the importance of having sego lilies in your life.
“There are ugly things happening around us,” Maloy, R-Utah, said. “There is a tendency to be cynical and get discouraged, and maybe the new Dixie spirit is our own struggle to find something beautiful here. We have beautiful buildings. We have streets that are convenient to drive on. And in our time, maybe the struggle is going to be finding the things that are lovely about the people around us.”
The new sculpture is one of many featured around City Hall Plaza. As part of this weekend’s St. George Art Festival, many artists, including Anderson, will be presenting various local artwork for the public to see. The event is held Friday, April 3, to Saturday, April 4, at City Hall Plaza.
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