Meet the man who created the MLK statue coming to Detroit’s Hart Plaza
By Keenan Smith
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DETROIT, Michigan (WXYZ) — One of the lasting memories of the NAACP Detroit June Jubilee will be the commemoration of the bronze statue of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The work is a lasting reminder of King’s push for America to live up to the words of the country’s founding documents that we are all created equal.
The statue was created by Utah sculpture artist Stanley Watts, by carving, peeling and trimming blocks of sculpting clay. He’s given shapes to giants like civil rights legend Rosa Parks, and journalist and educator Ida B. Wells.
“You spend 90% of your time looking at your subject and 10%. Actually making it,” Watts said about creating the statues.
He studies the features that bring the characters to life, like the shape of their cheeks and the subtle contours of their faces.
Watts has been sculpting monuments with meaning for 40 years. Rather than competing with other artists for scarce commissions, he says he bet on himself, creating art, then findiing a market for his work.
“If I did a good job, then I would sell it. So it put the pressure on me to do something,” he said.
Watts recalls when a 7-year-old boy visited his workshop and the King sculpture. It was a chance to see if his work really was a snapshot of the civil rights leader by asking a simple question.
“‘What does he look like?'” Watts said he asked the boy.
The boy told him the statue looked like he was speaking without words.
After the cast are complete and the metal is set, it’s time to construct the larger-than-life pieces.
“Just using Dr. King’s name, you have a responsibility to make it better than you could do,” Watts said.
Watts says he knows that this work will stand long past its dedication in Detroit and long after he is gone.
“In 500 years, Dr. King will still be saying, ‘I have a dream,'” Watts said.
He wants those who cast eyes on the man he cast in metal to never lose sight of King’s life’s work and King’s life sacrificed.
“I want them feeling the fulfillment of his dream 60 years ago,” he said. “Which was to be treated and respected equally.”
Of course, King is a part of that second generation of founding fathers, and he will now have a home here in Detroit.
Watts’ work depicting the first generation founder fathers John Adam, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin sits in Valley Forge not far from another bronze of George Washington.
He has also created work honoring the life of George Floyd, another figure whose life caused the nation to examine itself and what it could be.
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