The time has come for my wife, Traci, and me to leave Utah. We do so with enormous gratitude.
In March 2025, we left our home in Connecticut and drove west in a Sprinter van. We knew one person in the Salt Lake City area.
I had prayed deeply about where to go next and felt called to Utah — a place I had long associated with faith, family, self-reliance, love of country and a strong sense of responsibility to community. I came believing those values might make Utah a natural home for an idea I had been carrying with me.
I leave with an even greater respect for them.
For the previous nine years, I had devoted myself to creating “A Soldier’s Journey,” the 58-foot bronze relief at the heart of the National World War I Memorial in Washington, D.C. That experience strengthened a conviction that has guided my life as a sculptor: art can help us remember who we are. It can connect generations. It can tell the truth about sacrifice and struggle while reminding us of the ideals toward which we continue to strive.
The Grand Liberty Arch
The Grand Liberty Arch grew from that conviction.
I imagined a national monument that would tell the American story through people: families and soldiers, pioneers and patriots, Americans who endured slavery and fought for civil rights, Native Americans defending their land. It would not present our history as simple or perfect. Our history is neither.
It would instead ask what generations of Americans, in very different circumstances, have done with the freedom and responsibility handed to them — and what we will do with ours.
Utah seemed a fitting place to ask those questions.
What struck Traci and me almost immediately was how readily people welcomed us into their lives. Friends invited us into their homes and around their tables. They listened patiently as an artist described a monument that, at first, existed mostly in his imagination and a small model in clay.
Among those early conversations were the leaders of This Is the Place Heritage Park. Both received the idea warmly as we explored whether the park might become its home. Ultimately, we concluded that a national monument of this scale needed a different setting and a larger audience.
As the project developed, Utahns became part of the work itself.
I am a classical figurative sculptor. I work from life, and the people who enter my studio inevitably shape what I create.
One Native American model arrived with his son and brought his own tomahawk. I asked how he wanted to be represented. He chose to stand protecting his child and his land, tomahawk in hand.
I have thought often about that moment. I wanted the people represented in the arch to possess that same sense of agency, dignity and strength. History is made by human beings — parents and children, people protecting what they love, people enduring hardship, people trying to leave something better to the generation that follows.
Finding a place for the arch
Eventually, discussions turned to whether the Grand Liberty Arch might be located near the Utah State Capitol.
I came here admiring Utah’s devotion to faith, family, community and the idea that each generation bears responsibility for the next.
Before the Capitol Preservation Board was to consider the proposal, I prepared to present the project to neighborhood representatives and answer their questions. The day before that scheduled presentation, I was told it had been canceled because the board’s invitation had received no response.
I wish that conversation had happened then, including any objections, but the belated public conversation that followed reminded me of something important about Utah.
People here care deeply about their communities. They care about their neighborhoods, their history and the land entrusted to them.
A public monument intended to stand for generations cannot belong only to the artist who conceives it. I did not agree with every criticism of the Arch, and I did not recognize every characterization of the project or the process that appeared during that debate. But disagreement is part of life in a free society. Listening must be part of it, too.
In the end, I concluded that the proposed Capitol site was not the right home for a project of this scale.
The vision had grown beyond the arch itself. I imagined a place where parents might bring their children and teachers their students; where visitors could encounter our history, read words from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and consider both the freedoms we inherited and the obligations that accompany them. That vision requires room to breathe.
So, the Grand Liberty Arch will continue its search for a home, and Traci and I will continue our journey.
But when I think about leaving Utah, I think mainly about families who opened their homes to us, new friendships, models who trusted me to tell stories through their faces and bodies and people who gave their time to an artist with an unusually large idea.
I came here admiring Utah’s devotion to faith, family, community and the idea that each generation bears responsibility for the next. Nothing about the debate over my work changed that. If anything, I understand those commitments better now.
We can disagree about a monument. We can disagree about history, art and the use of a particular piece of land. A strong community does not require unanimity. It requires people who care enough to participate, the freedom to disagree and the grace to remain neighbors afterward.
That, too, is part of the American inheritance worth preserving.
We leave grateful.
Thank you, Utah. Godspeed.