With torches, grinders, and a gift for bringing new dimensions to old metal, sculptor Jud Turner is crafting a monument to survivors of the Holiday Farm Fire. It burned 173,000 acres in the McKenzie River Corridor last September, leveling towns like Blue River. KLCC’s Brian Bull produced this self-narrative, where Turner describes his project.
Jud Turner welds together pieces of Veribus.
Brian Bull / KLCC
“My name is Jud Turner and I’m a professional sculptor here in Eugene. I’ve been welding and working with repurposed materials and assemblage for a good 25 years.
“This is a sculpture in progress to commemorate the resilience and strength of the Blue River and McKenzie River area communities that were devastated by the Holiday Farm Fires last fall. It’s a phoenix rising, it’s about 12-13 feet tall, phoenix spreading its wings and rising from the ashes, literally. It’s created out of components that were found and salvaged from burn sites, particularly in the Blue River area.
“I’ve been up to the McKenzie River ever since I was a kid, and so there’s recognizable landmarks that were no longer recognizable after the fire, it was very disorienting to go up there and begin to gather the materials. And emotionally a really strong feeling of loss and of great respect for sifting through people’s property and the remnants of their houses and their shops and everything to look for material that I could use. So I did it with great care, permission of course, and then cooperation of the people who live there and are rebuilding their lives.
“The feathers of the phoenix are made from irrigation water barrels. There’s a fellow up there who had a business of doing professional irrigation installation and had a whole bunch of water barrels that are good to cut these feather shapes out of using an oxy-acetylene torch.
“There’s some things that have been decorative parts of people’s yards and property, there is lawn furniture in sorta some of the swirlier shapes that were repurposed from patio furniture.
“In the center there is a clear cylinder of McKenzie River. I went and gathered some water from the river to be the heart of the phoenix, and it’s now sealed inside a welded steel canister that has clear visibility so that you can see into the water. So that was a particularly meaningful component.
“I should be done in the beginning of May. And then I’ll work with some of the community board members in Blue River to get it sited. It’ll be somewhere in kinda the middle of the town.
“And then in September, on the one-year anniversary of the fire, there’s going to be a community remembrance ceremony that’ll be more of a memorial for loss of the community and just marking that date, and hopefully the phoenix will play a part in that. The symbology of rising from fire and ashes, beauty rising from ashes, was really one of the main themes that the phoenix seemed to capture. The name of the Phoenix is Viribus, which is Latin for “strength.”
“It is the right size at 12-feet tall, to look up at, and feel like it’s larger than us. It’s also made at a scale where a person can stand in front of it and hold out their own arms, and sort of adopt the pose and look like they are sprouting angel wings.
“This is truly an honor to be asked to do this for a community who has gone through such a traumatic experience, it’s sort of intimidating and exciting at the same time. I really want it to rise to the occasion of being really sensitive to what the sculpture’s purpose is and what the community’s been through, and I want them to pause and remember what happened in this area. And that the strength and spirit of the community rose above that. And that beauty does rise out of difficult times when people come together and work together.
“Public art has the potential to create identity and connection among the community where the art is placed.”