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SPRINGVILLE — Later this week, a 15-foot statue will be dedicated at Utah Valley University. But the sculptor has a much bigger version in mind that would be comparable in scale to the one that inspired it: the Statue of Liberty.
Gary Lee Price sculpted the 15-foot version in clay on the UVU campus and then cast it in aluminum in Springville. The dedication ceremony will take place Wednesday at noon in front of UVU's Losee Center.
A vastly bigger version — which some people find inspirational and others think is an oddball dream and a waste of money — is proposed for a harbor somewhere on the West Coast, a full-size sibling of the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast.
In his Springville foundry, Price showed off a piece of the 15-foot version.
"This is the thumb of one of the hands reaching down," Price said, holding an aluminum thumb the size of a breadbox.
If the bigger version is ever built, the thumbs and fingers of two clasped hands would be 10 to 20 times larger.
"This would be on the West Coast," Price said, "near water. And it bookends our nation. You'll have the Statue of Liberty and you have the Statue of Responsibility."
The premise is that responsibility goes hand-in-hand with liberty. A "Statue of Responsibility" was first proposed a half century ago in a famous book "Man's Search for Meaning" by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl.
Price said his ambitious project is strongly supported by Frankl's widow. "This is actually a copy of the one that I gave Mrs. Frankl in 2004 in Vienna," Price said, holding a small version of the sculpture. An earlier sculpture called "The Ascent" inspired Price's design for the Statue of Responsibility: it depicts two human figures helping each other climb a wall or a cliff with their fingers and hands clasping each other's wrists.
"This is part of my definition of responsibility," Price said, "that we get to help each other. That we get to assist each other."
The Statue of Responsibility would have a vertical, cylindrical shape, depicting one forearm reaching down, another reaching up, each hand clasping the other's wrist. Like the 15-foot version in Utah, the larger statue would be cast in aluminum.
"The kids across the nation, they can pick up cans and then donate them or have them recycled to create the statue," Price said.
One possible location for the statue is the harbor at San Diego. Also under consideration are the ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.
While enjoying a family trip to the waterfront, San Diego resident Rachel Higgins said, "I think that would be actually really nice for the community and for the United States as a whole."
Another San Diego resident, Derek Johnson, was impressed when he heard about the theme of the proposed statue. "If there was actually more responsibility on this planet," Johnson said, "then we wouldn't be in a lot of messes that we're in. Actually, that could be a good idea."
This is part of my definition of responsibility, that we get to help each other. That we get to assist each other.
–Gary Lee Price, sculptor
Depending on just how big it is — and whether there would be elevators to take tourists to an observation platform — Price says it could cost anywhere from $50 million to $300 million to build his monument to a basic virtue.
"This is a message for the world, not just for our nation," he said.
A nonprofit foundation has been set up to raise funds for the colossal statue. Skeptics, though, say it would be a colossal waste of money.
"It's a waste of a whole lot of money that could be better put to use someplace else," said Mike Lee, an Idaho resident who was visiting the San Diego waterfront.
"Talking about responsibility — a Statue of Responsibility — let's be responsible with our money and use it for something that's going to do some better good."
If it ever does get built, the giant statue will have a Utah pedigree. In 2010, the Utah Legislature declared Utah "The Birthplace of the Statue of Responsibility."
