Artwork for CFVH nears completion

A Plains man is putting the final touches on a monument of artistry with bugs, birds and copper flower power.

Several people have worked on the nine-foot tall copper willow tree, including David Williams, who is adding the several pieces to the tree before it is moved to its permanent home at Clark Fork Valley Hospital. The tree has 16 branches from 41-52 inches long with brass, copper and aluminum leaves, cut by JOM member Heather Allen.

Williams heads Joint Operation Mariposa, the nonprofit organization that is creating the decorated metal tree for the hospital. It was started some four years ago, but the pandemic caused a temporary halt to the project, which included price increases and a shortage of materials they were using for the tree, said Williams, who is working on nearly two dozen animal and flower pieces that he'll be attaching to the tree.

He has already finished making six 16-inch daffodils, six roses, a copper bird nest at the top of the tree, and four 43-inch cattails that will have water traveling through the inside of the copper stem, emerging out the top and cascading down the outside, said Williams. "This will allow the cattails to shimmer in the light as the water flows down them," said the Navy veteran.

"It's all about movement, everything in the project will represent some kind of movement," he said. He added that the more than 350 leaves are light enough to move in the wind, as will the metal butterflies and 21-inch long dragonflies with wings that span three inches. The tree will be situated above a 300-gallon tank of water and has a 75-inch-square heavy steel base made by Luke Richards of Plains. The base will be covered by stone to allow the water to be caught and reused through the sculpture, said Williams, who founded JOM in 2016 as a veterans outreach and advocacy organization, though the group has been involved with other non-veteran community projects, such as the copper tree.

Several volunteers have been working on the project, including Aurora Peacock of Plains and Navy retiree Ed Foste, who had housed the tree at his Plains home during most of the construction. The plan is for the tree to be placed near the Clark Fork Valley Hospital Long Term Care facility, said Tonya Revier, the hospital's Marketing and Community Relations coordinator.

Williams has been an artist for nearly 30 years, working mostly with acrylic paint and watercolors. His work can be found around the world, in the Veterans Administration in Helena and at Washington, D.C. He has taught art classes locally and overseas. He started working with copper in high school, making jewelry. He chose copper for the willow tree project because of the way the metal oxidizes, which he said creates a uniqueness and character as it transforms over time.

"First lesson to learn when working with copper is the more you work it the harder it gets, so you need to heat it occasionally to make it more malleable and easier to work with or you can break it," said Williams.

He started on the final phase of the project about two months ago and is nearly done. One of the pieces he's working on is a three-inch frog, but this item will have a rock inside the copper frame. He's also creating a seven-inch long hummingbird that will be sucking nectar from a daffodil. The frog and hummingbird took the longest because of multiple parts and the finer, intricate details, said Williams. "I like the way it is coming together and the feel of the piece and I hope it makes people smile when they see it and give them some comfort when they see and hear it," he said.

The hardest components were the roses. He used a pattern from an old blacksmith pattern book and traced them from an outline he printed. Each took Williams about two and a half hours to make because he had to hand cut and file each piece before bending, folding and soldering the pieces together. "There are seven templates for the roses I made. Those seven templates can be fitted together as one fully opened rose or you can leave some of the templates out to create partially open roses or rose buds that aren't open at all," said Williams.

"When I am done doing what I am doing, it will be ready for transport and set up for display," said Williams, who hopes to have it done and ready for transport by August or September. "This sculpture was designed to encourage the local wildlife to come and interact with it for the benefit of the individuals that live there," said Williams. "By wildlife I mean birds, butterflies, dragonflies and such."