{"id":8839,"date":"2020-06-16T22:35:38","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T22:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2020\/06\/19\/joseph-vaughn-statue-taking-shape-in-california-studio\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:33:46","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:33:46","slug":"joseph-vaughn-statue-taking-shape-in-california-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/joseph-vaughn-statue-taking-shape-in-california-studio\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph Vaughn statue taking shape"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steven Whyte, a Carmel, California-based sculptor, is recreating an iconic image of Joseph Vaughn, Furman University\u2019s first African American undergraduate student, as a bronze statue that will forever commemorate Vaughn\u2019s walk up the steps to James B. Duke Library, wearing a cardigan and with books tucked under his arm.<\/p>\n

The statue, based on a photo<\/a> taken during Vaughn\u2019s first semester on Furman\u2019s campus in the winter of 1965, will be adjacent to a brick and grassy area interspersed with short walls to provide a place of reflection and celebration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Close-up<\/a>

Steven Whyte works on a sculpture of Joseph Vaughn.<\/p><\/div>\n

The statue is among a set of recommendations from Furman\u2019s Task Force on Slavery and Justice<\/a>, formed in the spring of 2017 to acknowledge Furman\u2019s ties to slavery and to honor and recognize on campus important figures in the university\u2019s diverse history.<\/p>\n

Whyte, whose works include international social justice figures, was chosen in February by a university working group<\/a> and approved by the Board of Trustees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe working group agreed that Steven Whyte\u2019s work was simply the best,\u201d says Bob Chance, a member of the group and a professor of art at Furman. The group, he says, \u201cwanted a straightforward image and that is why we chose Whyte. We considered about 10 other sculptors, including several minority artists, but Whyte\u2019s portrait work was convincing visually, sensitive and empathetic without appearing stiff or abstracted.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his proposal for the Furman commission, Whyte wrote that he had become frustrated by the lack of diversity in subjects chosen for public works of art. \u201cFor more than a decade, I have been purposely seeking out projects focused on diversity and social justice,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIn addition to my belief that our society, as a whole, benefits when we open ourselves up to new experiences and a diversity of narratives, I find subjects like Mr. Vaughn artistically challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

He proposed \u201cusing posture and expression\u201d to create \u201ca monument that celebrates (Vaughn\u2019s) courage, determination and vulnerability represented in Mr. Vaughn\u2019s deceptively simple act of walking into a classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among other works, Whyte created the Comfort Women Memorial<\/a> statue in San Francisco, installed in 2017 and dedicated to young Asian women and girls who were sexually enslaved by Japanese forces during World War II. He has also created busts of Abraham Lincoln, Congressman John Conyers Jr. and two busts of Martin Luther King Jr. His work for other universities includes a life-sized African elephant for Tufts University and several pieces for Texas A&M, including a 40-foot long statue of 12 students, 1.6-times life size, with arms linked singing Texas A&M\u2019s fight song.<\/p>\n

Vaughn, who became a teacher and a leader in South Carolina public education, died in 1991. He was a visionary, Chance says, and placing a memorial to him in a prominent place on campus \u201ccreates respect, questions, conversation and a sense of what has gone before and what is happening now and may occur in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether he chose it or not, he became emblematic of what we now see as an essential and integrated knowledge community; a blend of culture, race, ethnicity and diversity that contributes to our understanding of our education and its place in the world today,” Chance says. “He was a person to look up to now in our current racial tumult. He was willing to risk it and created a path forward for all of our students to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

The torso of the Joseph Vaughn statue being carved in Carmel, California.<\/p><\/div>\n

Courtney Tollison \u201999, Distinguished University Historian and Scholar, says \u201cSteven Whyte is a talented artist who understands the meaning behind why we memorialize.”<\/p>\n

Tollison says a quote from Furman alumnus J. Monroe Johnson often comes my mind: \u201cCivilizations of people can be accurately judged by their monuments.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJoseph Vaughn\u2019s matriculation into Furman and our efforts to memorialize him at the heart of campus, represent critical moments in Furman\u2019s work toward becoming a more enlightened, inclusive community for all,\u201d Tollison says. \u201cThe addition of a statue honoring Vaughn on our campus will not only reveal who we are and what we value, but it will also be a significant work from an artistic standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whyte\u2019s work on the Vaughn statue is well under way. After creating the figure in clay he\u2019ll create molds, which are sent to a foundry in Berkeley, California, where the sculpture will be cast in about eight pieces. The bronze parts will be welded together and finishing touches will be made before it\u2019s shipped to Furman for installation.<\/p>\n

The project is scheduled to be complete in time for the second-annual Joseph Vaughn Day, Jan. 29, 2021.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\nThe gallery was not found!\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steven Whyte, a Carmel, California-based sculptor, is recreating an iconic image of Joseph Vaughn, Furman University\u2019s first African American undergraduate student, as a bronze statue that will forever commemorate Vaughn\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":18645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,13,30,1],"tags":[228,229,327,237,328],"class_list":["post-8839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-top-four-news-4th-story","category-top-stories","category-uncategorized","tag-joseph-vaughn","tag-joseph-vaughn-day","tag-joseph-vaughn-statue","tag-seeking-abraham","tag-statue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}