“I stood in the sand next to the Mississippi River and wondered who had stood there before me.”
Even though her family has deep roots in Wisconsin, sculptor Florence Bird knew nothing of the old Mississippi River town of Prairie du Chien until twenty years ago. During her initial trip, she went to St. Feriole Island—to the area where Prairie du Chien began—where a moment and a thought would change her life.
“When I first got to Prairie du Chien and I was standing there by the Mississippi River, I thought, ‘This is the river of Mark Twain, and steamboats.’ It was a magical place for me. That’s when I wondered who else stood here.”
That moment, that single thought, inspired a bold idea for a project that will take years to complete: to create sculptures of some of the people who have stood in that very spot over the last 10,000 years.
Florence developed a plan for 26 sculptures in total, all of them selected because they had a hand in shaping the history of the area around the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers. When completed, each sculpture would be given a home in the Mississippi River Sculpture Park on St. Feriole Island.
She began by crafting a small clay mold of each figure. All 26 of those are now finished. When she has raised enough money to complete a full sculpture, she works with a foundry in Milwaukee to bring it to life. The factory crafts a Styrofoam model, which she then details in clay, then sends it back to the foundry for casting in bronze.
She began the project by creating a sculpture of Black Hawk, the Sauk leader. It was installed in 2005. The sculpture of local legend and basket making artisan, Emma Big Bear, was installed in 2011. Bird has completed six sculptures as of 2022, with three more coming soon, including sculptures of Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet that she hopes to have in place to commemorate the 350th anniversary of their journey down the Mississippi River.
The area around Prairie du Chien, near the merging of the Mississippi and Wisconsin Rivers, has a long history as a confluence of cultures, too. Bird’s sculptures offer one way for us to reflect on and appreciate that deep history.
