{"id":24523,"date":"2025-07-20T20:31:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T20:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/24523\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T20:31:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T20:31:11","slug":"famous-sculptures-placed-around-the-world-come-from-landers-eagle-bronze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/24523\/","title":{"rendered":"Famous Sculptures Placed Around The World Come From Lander’s Eagle Bronze"},"content":{"rendered":"

LANDER \u2014 Beverly and Monte Paddleford thought they were just doing Beverly\u2019s dad a one-\u00a0or\u00a0two-year favor when they started Eagle Bronze Foundry in 1985.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The couple didn\u2019t know then\u00a0they were actually beginning a decades-long journey that\u00a0would\u00a0take their work not just across America, but around the globe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The latest world traveler for the Lander-based business is a life-size bronze cast of Beverly\u2019s \u201cHope Monument,\u201d which toured Italy last year before being placed in the small town of Loreto in northeastern Italy. The placement was part of the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope.<\/p>\n

Loreto is famous in the Catholic faith as the home of a small stone building traditionally held to be the childhood home of the Virgin Mary, moved from Nazareth in 1291 during the Crusades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It landed in its present home in Loreto in 1294 and has been an important shrine\u00a0for\u00a0Catholics around the world ever since.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Legend depicts the Virgin Mary\u2019s childhood home being moved by literal angels at the shrine. Historical texts, meanwhile, mention that the move was accomplished by a noble family with the surname Angeli, which is Italian for angels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More than 200 saints and beatified people have been recorded visiting the childhood home of the Virgin Mary in Loreto, including Saint Francis of Assisi. Millions of pilgrims also visit the community every year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those visitors will now also see\u00a0a monument<\/a>\u00a0that was sculpted by an artist from Lander and cast at the Eagle Bronze foundry.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis, in a YouTube video\u00a0posted in June of last year, mentioned efforts to bring Paddleton\u2019s \u201cHope Monument\u201d\u00a0sculpture\u00a0to Italy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a\u00a0two-part message that also included the late pope\u2019s thoughts on the\u00a0importance of hope, embodied in children, to humanity as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018Hope Monument,\u2019 by its very presence, is a unique place of hope, tenderness, welcome, comfort, rest for the body, peace for the soul, healing of the mind,\u201d according to a translation of the pope\u2019s words. \u201cFor the 2025 Jubilee of Hope, let us bring the Hope Monument to Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BeverlyBeverly Paddleton poses next to a statue she’s working on at Eagle Bronze in Lander. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"BeverlyBeverly Paddleton talks about the process of turning a clay sculpture into a bronze statue at the Eagle Bronze foundry in Lander. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"AA photo of the late John Houser working on the Conquistador Monument, which was installed at the airport in El Paso, Texas. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"Oil-clayOil-clay sculptures by Chris Navarro that will be going into a hospital as a children’s scavenger hunt. Navarro is one of several prominent artists who use the Eagle Bronze foundry in Lander. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"PiecesPieces of a bronze statue are being put together in the shop at the Eagle Bronze foundry in Lander. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"AA finished bronze, cast at the Eagle Bronze foundry in Lander. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"PiecesPieces of a bronze statue are being put together in the shop at the Eagle Bronze foundry in Lander. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)Arrow leftArrow rightA Healing Sculpture\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beverly created the Hope Monument 25 years ago, and it has been placed in a number of locations since, including Grand Rapids, Michigan, in early 2000 and the Minnesota Prayer Garden the same year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The life-size bronze shows Jesus holding a baby and seated next to the baby\u2019s mother, holding her hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started out as a healing sculpture for women with abortion in their past,\u201d Beverly told Cowboy State Daily. \u201cBut it quickly became a healing sculpture for people who have lost a child to early death, at any age.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 50 \u201cHope Monuments\u201d have been placed in various locations, Beverly said. The sculpture has also been placed outside the U.S. as well, including Romania and Canada, as well as now Italy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one in Romania was placed at an orphanage and women\u2019s center in the city of Timisoara,\u201d Beverly said. \u201cAnd there\u2019s one in Lyn, Ontario, Canada, near Brockville. That\u2019s a 1-acre garden which has a lot of my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mexico, meanwhile, has a copy of Beverly\u2019s \u201cThe\u00a0Master Teacher\u201d sculpture, which is a 1.25 life-sized bronze of Jesus, seated as he teaches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A copy of that sculpture has also been installed at Oral Roberts University, among other places. A photo of the Oral Roberts sculpture shows two students in bronze, sitting at Jesus\u2019 feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beverly didn\u2019t\u00a0set out to be a\u00a0sculptor. It evolved naturally as she was working with art objects at the foundry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just working like crazy in the foundry,\u201d Beverly said. \u201cAnd I just felt like I could do it. I had done a little art in college.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her first sculpture was \u201cThe Lineman,\u201d which she did for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association\u2019s headquarters in Washington, D.C., in 1995.<\/p>\n

Beverly had been working on an art education degree before moving back home to Lander with her husband and childhood sweetheart, Monte.<\/p>\n

They Thought They Were Starting A Church<\/p>\n

Monte told Cowboy State Daily he and his wife had originally came home to Lander to start a church.<\/p>\n

\u201cLo and behold, other people had also been sent in here to plant the same church,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, it was kind of a group of people who came together to get that going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monte had no real vision for growing the foundry he and his wife had started at the same time, because they hadn\u2019t planned to do that for more than a couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we are 40 years later,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s been an interesting journey. We\u2019ve had a chance to be part of some pretty unique projects through the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those projects have included the Shanghai version of the late Arturo Di Modica\u2019s charging bull, which graces the Bund financial district on mainland China.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s similar to the charging bull that Modica also did for Wall Street, but the tail of the Shanghai bull points up, symbolizing China\u2019s rising influence, and the bull\u2019s head turns right instead of left.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to build a crate about the size of this room,\u201d Beverly recalled. \u201cIt was like a little house, and that\u2019s how it got over there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Modica did several different sizes of charging bulls over the years, Monte said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are in private collections and some public collections around this country and in Europe,\u201d Monte said. \u201cSo out here in the wild of Wyoming we\u2019ve had the opportunity to do some new and unique things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Most Secretive Industry<\/p>\n

In the beginning, though, things were very tough for the young couple.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere weren\u2019t even any books on the subject (of operating a foundry),\u201d Beverly said. \u201cWe hadn\u2019t been to school for it. We had to learn by just my dad telling us what little he knew.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monte couldn\u2019t believe how secretive the bronze casting industry was.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019d come from industries like photography company Eastman Kodak and aluminum company Alcoa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both required him to sign\u00a0nondisclosure\u00a0forms and were so secretive they didn\u2019t even file patents. They didn\u2019t want any of their proprietary ideas out in any public forum.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was almost like in Biblical times,\u201d Monte said, referring to the attitude of foundries he sought help from. \u201cIt was like it was handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monte and his wife have chosen to be much less secretive about their processes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They give public tours and share their knowledge with others.\u00a0Foundries, they said, are disappearing, and they are more worried about losing this artform than keeping it secret.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was funny that the stuff I saw in aerospace casting places when I worked for Alcoa would be more technically secretive than anything you would do in an art foundry,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that was openly shared with people coming in to talk about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for art? It was just silly how people were in this industry, but that\u2019s how it is. So, we learned a lot by trial and error in the early years. We did a lot of right things and made a lot of mistakes too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like the time an employee, trying to replicate a trick he\u2019d seen Monte do, tried to remove an undesirable patina from a statue to put on a different color. He accidentally burned up the entire statue.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d put the bronzes in the furnace at a certain temperature, and it would bake the wax and coating off so we could sandblast it and re-patina it with a new coloration,\u201d Beverly said. \u201cBut he put it in the furnace full-blast and melted the pieces.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were kind of hysterical about that at the time, and Monte was not happy with us when he got back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA huge bronze installation of 70 larger-than-life longhorn steers that was cast at Eagle Bronze Foundry in Lander, Wyoming. (Ian Dagnall, Alamy)\"AA huge bronze installation of 70 larger-than-life longhorn steers that was cast at Eagle Bronze Foundry in Lander, Wyoming. (Ian Dagnall, Alamy)\"AA huge bronze installation of 70 larger-than-life longhorn steers that was cast at Eagle Bronze Foundry in Lander, Wyoming. (Carol M. Highsmith via Library of Congress)\""The“The Master Teacher” by Beverly Paddleford of Lander, Wyoming, at Oral Roberts University. It features a larger-than-life Jesus with students at his feed. (J. Stephen Conn via Flickr)\"ThisThis longhorn steer bronze monument is considered the longest continuous bronze monument in the U.S. It was cast at the Eagle Bronze, a foundry in Lander. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"BeverlyBeverly Paddleford looks at some of the work Eagle Bronze, a foundry in Lander, has cast. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"PhotosPhotos of the monument Corn Stalkin’, installed at Cabelas in South Dakota. The sculpture was created by Beverly Paddleford and cast at Eagle Bronze, a foundry in Lander. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)Arrow leftArrow right70 Steers, No Two Alike<\/p>\n

The project that gave them national recognition and proved a turning point\u00a0for Eagle Bronze\u00a0was the huge longhorn sculpture they cast for artist Robert Summers, which is in Dallas\u2019 Pioneer Plaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Featuring 70 larger-than-life 6-foot-tall longhorn steers,\u00a0it\u2019s considered the longest continuous-themed bronze sculpture collection in the United States, according to the Library of Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seventy steers, no two alike, are set along a manmade ridge and limestone cliff that includes native landscaping, a flowing stream and a waterfall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey landscape it like the Texas countryside,\u201d Beverly said. \u201cWhen you look at it, you\u2019d never guess that it\u2019s in downtown Dallas. I mean, the Convention Center is just over to the side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Installed in 1994, that\u00a0project not only put the couple\u2019s foundry on the map, it was profitable enough that they could keep the business going.<\/p>\n

Since then, they\u2019ve done thousands and thousands of sculptures from all over the world, from miniature to monumental.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their works have included\u00a0golden microphones for the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville on up to a three-times-life-sized outdoor monument of\u00a0foxeschasing down pheasants for Cabela\u2019s. That one is called \u201cCorn Stalkin\u2019\u201d and was placed in South Dakota in 1999.<\/p>\n

The largest monument Eagle Bronze has cast was \u201cThe Conquistador,\u201d sculpted by the late John Houser. It\u2019s a 36-foot-tall statue of Don Juan de Onate, who led the Spanish colonization of New Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Onate is a polarizing figure, so the statue attracted protestors when it was unveiled. It was installed in El Paso, Texas, in 2006, but eventually moved to the airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he was trying to do was show the history of that area down in the southwest and the conquistadors were part of it,\u201d Beverly said. \u201cUnfortunately, the day this was installed, there were a whole lot of people protesting and yelling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really sad. John was really sad about it. He tried to explain it, but people were yelling too loudly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visit El Paso promotes\u00a0the sculpture as the largest bronze equestrian statue in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While there are other larger equestrian sculptures, they\u2019re not made solely of bronze. For example, the 131-foot-tall equestrian statue of Ghengis Kahn in Mongolia is made of stainless steel, and there\u2019s Uruguay\u2019s 59-foot-tall equestrian statue of General Jose Gervasio Artigas. Most of that statue\u2019s height is its granite base, however, and the actual bronze is only 11 feet tall.<\/p>\n

Monte still remembers how the artist, discovering that there was a larger bronze equestrian statue in Russia at the time than the one he was working on, came back to the foundry to resize his to ensure it would be the largest.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we look back, these are things we\u2019ve taken for granted because we work with it every day,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen people come in and find an interest in it, that kind of rejuvenates us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thinking about how long some of the bronzes will last is also humbling, Monte added.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo think that the things we\u2019ve done here will last far, far beyond us \u2014 it will last for generations,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd a lot of this work has been so rewarding in that regard. We get to see how this art touches people\u2019s lives. It makes a difference for some people in terms of how they see the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it\u2019s a journey that I certainly would have thought we would have never, ever been on, but somehow did find ourselves on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9e Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LANDER \u2014 Beverly and Monte Paddleford thought they were just doing Beverly\u2019s dad a one-\u00a0or\u00a0two-year favor when they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-24523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}