The path to one of Utah's most sought-after artists is stained with gasoline and littered with truck parts. Behind a local auto body shop, up one flight of rickety stairs, sculptor Stan Watts stands looking at an unfinished bust of Brigham Young.
It is a remarkable likeness of the black-and-white photo before it. When finished, it will become part of Watts' impressive and growing cadre of work that has, since 1997, popped up like wildflowers across the Wasatch Front.
That year, Watts unveiled a statue of a young Joseph Smith that stands at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in downtown Salt Lake. He has since finished a statue of Brigham Young that stands at the LDS prophet's grave site, and he sculpted a pair of mammoth hockey players on display in front of the E Center.
"What do you think of his eyes?" Watts asks, referring to the bust before him.
His own eyes suggest a story worth hearing. They light up when he talks about his work, but the dark circles around them hint that he is a man who, as he says, has "seen both sides."
From the time he was 16, Watts knew he was an artist. He finished his first statue — depicting Moses shielding himself from the burning bush of Sinai — when he was 21 and sold it to an attorney. Ten years later Watts found himself working in a foundry molding sculptures someone else had created. He had become an artist in name only, he said.
Bleeding from ulcers and mired in habits that had taken control of his life, Watts said he turned to God for help.
He wrote a mission statement that now sits in a frame in his office and embarked on the sculpture of Joseph Smith that changed his professional life.
The mission statement reads like scripture — "To enlighten the children of men through fine art" — which is fitting for Watts, who can go from talking about clay to Jesus to the "jaws of hell" in the same short breath.
Since writing his mission statement four years ago, Watts has created a bronze statue of Mormon Pioneers, ornate bronze doors for the LDS Winter Quarters Temple and recently finished a 2,400-pound life-size sculpture of the Founding Fathers that is on display at the Gateway shopping center.
For the latter project, Watts put up tens of thousands of dollars his own money.
"When you take all of your own money and all the money people will give you to do something, that's when you know it's important," Watts said. "I had to do this."
The statue shows Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams kneeling in prayer over a draft of the Declaration of Independence. Watts wanted to preserve in bronze his belief the Founding Fathers were God-fearing men.
He calls it his most important work, but judging from his office, it won't be his last. The room is cluttered with photos of Abraham Lincoln, penciled sketches of Biblical prophets and paintings of angels pointing to the heavens.
"This is what he's chosen for his career, and sometimes it's lucrative and sometimes you're scraping the bottom of the barrel," said Don Isgar, who works with Watts at the Atlas Bronze foundry in downtown Salt Lake. "He's a good sculptor and he puts himself into his work."
As Watts sits down to work on the bust of Brigham Young, it becomes clear he is nothing like those dreary souls who work for a paycheck, dreaming of a far-off sunny beach. He labors instead behind a diesel repair shop carving angels and hockey players that will last forever.
"I'm not just making pretty things, I'm a teacher," he said. "There's a responsibility that comes with making something that lasts; my work can transcend time."
E-MAIL: jhyde@desnews.com