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ALPINE — The city of Taylorsville will host the Veterans Day Parade this year, followed by the unveiling of a new veterans memorial. Monday, artist Bradley Taggart and the staff at Adonis Bronze foundry provided a sneak peak of how the statue is being made.
This beautiful but dangerous process, which involves the pouring of 2,150-degree liquid bronze, dates back thousands of years. Taggart calls this commission a dream come true.
"This is honoring people I know, like students I know who have gone away to battle, friends of mine that go away to war for a year and I see their families and children home without them," he said.
Taggart said he was watching TV news on day and saw a story about soldiers coming home. He immediately had a desire to create a monument to them, and ironically it was the very next day he received a call from Taylorsville City asking him to sculpt the monument.
The memorial will be 100 feet wide, 250 feet long, 10 feet tall and consist of nine figures. Taggart first sculpts them out of clay, then the bronze figures are created at Adonis Bronze.
The process from clay to bronze takes several steps. First, a wax of the original is dipped in paint five to seven times and then coated with sand. After the metal pour, the wax is melted out and the ceramic is chipped off. Then the two pieces of the sculpture are welded together. What emerges in the war memorial must touch the heart.
"People are going to view them, they are going to see them, and they are going to touch them and take pictures with them," said Denzil Jenks, production manager at Adonis Bronze. "You want to put your best foot forward and you want to stir that emotion within those people as well."
The city of Taylorsville and its citizens will pay tribute this Veterans Day to so many in their community who serve the country.
"It is just bigger than me in so many ways," Taggart said. "But it's neat to be the hands that get to push the clay around in this case."
The $318,000 project is being funded by Taylorsville, with assistance from the Utah Department of Community and Culture and several private donors. The city also has received several in-kind donations that have kept the costs to the city down.
"It's very important that the community comes together to contribute time and effort for a project like this," said Don Adams, Taylorsville's economic development director.
Taylorsville's Veterans Day celebration gets under way at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 11, with a parade. At 12:15 p.m., a program featuring Gov. Gary Herbert as the keynote speaker will be held outside City Hall, 2600 W. Taylorsville Blvd. The first sculpture of the Taylorsville Veterans Memorial will be unveiled during that program.
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Written by Carole Mikita with contributions from Jared Page
