Art Sculptures Donated To Warsaw For Public Display
Art Sculptures Donated To Warsaw For Public Display
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Art Sculptures Donated To Warsaw For Public DisplayFor about the last two decades, people have stopped at the South Paxton Drive home of Milton and Marie Holmgrain in Warsaw to take photos with the sculptures in the Holmgrains’ yard or just to admire the metal pieces of art.
With Milton moving to Illinois to be closer to his family after the passing of Marie in September, he is donating seven of the art pieces to the city of Warsaw.
“The city of Warsaw Public Arts Commission is most appreciative of the donation of seven sculptures from the Marie and Milton Holmgrain family collection,” Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer said in a statement. “Promoting public art has long been the focus of the WPAC and this donation will help us expand the number of permanent sculpture displays in our community for all to enjoy. We are certainly appreciative of the generosity of the family.”
The WPAC met Tuesday afternoon and has already begun to plan the restoration and relocation of the Holmgrain collection in the community, Thallemer said.
Born in Chadron, Neb., Milton moved around for college and then his job. He came to the Warsaw area in 1972 to help with the fundraising and building of Kosciusko Community Hospital (now Lutheran Kosciusko Hospital). He also helped with the building plans, recruiting of the staff and worked with the physicians to get the medical aspect of the hospital completed. The hospital then opened about 2-1/2 years later.
“I was the CEO - we changed it to president - all the time I was here,” he said in an interview at his home Monday morning. He retired in 1988.
One of the things that Milton enjoys is art.
“I started out, really, basically in college. I thought, well, I’d like to do some artwork. Well, I found out my best part of art was plagiarism,” he said with a laugh. “I didn’t have the talent to do the work. I had the ambition, I could see it, I could draw part of it, but I couldn’t create it.”
He said they traveled a great deal and looked at a lot of art throughout the world.
“The thing that I enjoy about art is I can appreciate the ability to foreseeing and the talent that goes to create it. In my opinion, it doesn’t have to be all beautiful pieces ... it’s the foreseeing, the talent and the ability of the artist that amazes me. And that’s what’s kind of dictated more of our purchases,” he said.
The first piece he purchased for the outdoors was “Winged Totem” by Robert Mishler of Goshen.
He said they became serious about their art collection in 1976. Originally, they purchased prints of artwork, but the more they considered it, he said they decided to go for original pieces instead of prints. “They weren’t any more expensive, at that time,” Milton said.
Their artwork that they purchased over the years consists of many different mediums - ceramic, marble, bronze and glass.
“The glass is very, very fascinating. The bronze is - some of them are extremely talented,” Milton said, pointing out some of the artwork in his house that hadn’t been boxed up yet for the move. “And there’s no end to the talent in pictures.”
Milton and Marie had a couple of artists they liked, but he said they purchased what they liked and the talent that created that art.
“There’s a lot of artwork out there that is very amateurish. You can see in the work the ability and the attitude of the artist, not to just throw something out in the market,” Milton said.
He mentioned local artist Terry Armstrong as an artist whose work is “superb.” Armstrong’s work was probably one of the first watercolor paintings that they purchased, Milton recalled.
Of the nine sculptures in his yard Monday, Milton said his daughter was going to take two of them to her home.
“The other seven pieces, we’re contributing to the city. We got involved several years ago and gave a large sculpture to the city park (Central Park), and we had hoped that this would be the beginning, and it seems to be. It’s coming to fruition,” Milton said. “I find that I can design and do things better than create. Of the artist’s work ... we have two of just (Mishler’s) sculptures and two of the coordinated pieces.”
On the coordinated pieces, Milton designed them while Mishler created/manufactured/built them.
“Then I found I couldn’t weld aluminum so I switched to steel and made three by myself,” Milton said.
The pieces in his yard range in size. One is 2 foot by 2 foot by 6 foot tall. A piece titled “Circle Squared” is about 4 feet squared and made of aluminum. Winged Totem is 10 to 12 feet high.
“These are not huge ones, but they’re not small ones,” Milton said.
In his own work, he said he always made a sample of the art first to see if he could do it. He had a smaller version of the piece titled “Peacock” in his living room and the larger version outside.
Asked if he has a favorite piece, Milton jokingly responded, “The one I was working on.” Then he said his two most favorite were “Circle Squared” and the 6-foot version of “Peacock.”
Over the years, he said, “We’ve had a tremendous amount of people stop by and look at them. We’ve had high school art students come out, study them, look at them. We’ve had many college people. We’ve had people come out and take wedding pictures. We’ve had quite a few bring their children out to look at them and get their pictures taken with them.”
He said he thinks one reason for people stopping by is because they’re so unique.
“It’s the only one in Warsaw that has more than one, I think. I know they’ve brought in several groups in the fall, but they weren’t permanent. We’ve enjoyed it,” he said.
With the passing of his wife of 67 years, and him nearing the end of his own life, Milton said it was time for other people to enjoy the sculptures and for the sculptures to help the community grow.
“She enjoyed it very much,” Milton said of his wife and the art. “I can’t say we ever really disagreed (on art). We may say, ‘I like this one a little bit better than that one,’ and she liked it. If she didn’t really like it, we never really pursued it. We didn’t argue with it, it wasn’t one that we wanted in the house. We really agreed on every piece that we bought, both picture and sculpture.”
Milton estimates that he has 30 to 35 art pictures and around 20 sculptures with 14 of them inside that range from 3 to 5 feet tall.
Thallemer told him the pieces will be spread around the city.
“We didn’t want to congregate them and just overdo one spot. So my only request was that they’d be someplace and displayed where the people could enjoy it. Not hidden behind a tree or not hidden behind a building or something like that. Because it’s for them to enjoy. They are the city,” Milton said.
He said the pieces are well-diversified. They don’t represent any one thing and run the whole gamut as far as texture and beauty.
