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Back Roads: Sculptor by design
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Big Stone Western Art, Odessa
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Big Stone Western Art, Odessa Richard Siemers
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Big Stone Western Art, Odessa
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Originally published in the August 7, 2009, print edition.
— Darold “Beatle” Bailey is a carpenter by trade, a sculptor by design. Six months out of the year he works in bridge construction. On weekends and in the winter, he’s creating works of art. His wife, Paula, runs the Big Stone Western Art gallery that is part of their home in Odessa.
Bailey has three major works in the area. Three bronze brickyard workers in Fireman’s Park in Chaska memorialize the workers at the former brickyard there. A life-sized figure of Christ carved from basswood hangs on a cross in St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Breckenridge. “Monarch of the Plains,” a bison sculpted from mahogany granite, rests in Falls Park in Sioux Falls, S.D. Bailey is now producing a limited edition of “Monarch of the Plains” in 40-pound bronze replicas.
Bailey never attended art school, but he has studied with a long line of artists to improve his technique and learn new techniques. He started carving wood, moved on to stone, and then started with bronze. His foundry, known as Gone Foundry (the name is a story in itself), sits next to his home.
Born nearby, he grew up in Arizona and returned to Minnesota when he got out of the service. He and Paula were the last couple to be married in the Methodist church in Odessa. After it closed, they purchased the building in 1984 and have transformed it into a home and gallery. Out front are metal sculptures made from scrap iron, and a sign identifying Big Stone Western Art.
Of all the mediums with which Bailey works, bronze is the most time-consuming. Creating a bronze statue is a multi-step process. He sculpts a clay statue, then makes a rubber mold, a wax model and a ceramic shell before ever getting to the bronze. It’s still not complete until it has been cleaned of its ceramic shell and colored with an acid patina. But all that work is how he relaxes.
Building bridges may tire others out, but Bailey said he would get bored sitting around. That’s why he’s always learning new methods, working to perfect the ones he knows, enticing people and creatures out of blocks of wood and stone, scraps of iron and melted bronze.
“I do it for entertainment,” he said. “Others go fishing.”
You can visit Big Stone Western Art and Gone Foundry at 206 Bloomington Avenue in Odessa, or contact the Baileys at (320) 273-2212 or mabailey@fedteldirect.net.
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