On Saturday, April 21, 2007, friends, supporters and a gilt-edged list of dignitaries including Honorable Bruce Cole, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Don Manuel Gullon y Oñate, Conde de Tepa (a direct descendant of Juan de Oñate) and Pamela Willeford, Former Ambassador to Switzerland, gathered at the El Paso International Airport to celebrate the dedication of John Houser's awe inspiring sculpture, "The Equestrian". Costumed in full regalia and astride his rearing Andalusian stallion, this 36-foot tall, 18 ton bronze replica of Spanish colonizer Don Juan de Oñate represents a dynamic tribute to four centuries of history at El Paso del Norte, the Great Pass of the North.
Although controversy still looms pertaining to his treatment of the Acoma Indians, Oñate and his small colony at Santa Fe merit a place in history for introducing the Hispanic culture – including the food, religion, language and all importantly the horse – to the indigenous people of the Southwest. The group's harrowing trek across New Mexico also blazed the trail for the Camino Real, the Royal Highway, which served as a trade route between Mexico City and Santa Fe for more than 300 years. Thus, the sculpture honors not only the common bonds between the United States, Spain and Mexico, but also stands as a tribute to all who pioneered this region.
Oñate's presence also celebrates a concept 20 years in the making. First envisioned as one of twelve heroic-sized bronze figures in the XII Travelers Memorial of the Southwest, a sculpture garden slated for placement in downtown El Paso, the colonizer's
sculpture eventually took on a more important role as a stand-alone monument depicting El Paso's Spanish Colonial heritage. Also, it comes as no surprise that Houser was willing to commit two decades of his life to this project, for a love of monumental work flows in his veins. As a youth he gained insights into the dedication required to create a work of this scale as he watched the artistic endeavors of his father, Ivan Houser, who served as first assistant to sculptor Gutzon Borglum during the carving of the presidential faces at Mount Rushmore.
Like sculpting in stone, the technique used in creating the Oñate bronze is also a painstaking and time-consuming process. The "Equestrian" began life as a clay maquette (a working miniature version), which Houser designed in his El Paso studio. The enlargement process, in which the piece was scaled up from 33 inches in height to more than 35 feet, was then transferred to Mexico City in order to find a studio large enough to accommodate the huge model.
Work there began by constructing a framework of welded cross-sections of rebar supported by steel beams on a rotating platform designed to hold 25 tons of weight. This framework was then covered with pieces of burlap soaked in plaster, which provided support for the final molding also executed in plaster. Next, latex was applied to the original, creating flexible molds that replicated even the most intricate details. Encased in a plastic resin to retain form, the molds, now divided into 300-500 separate pieces, were shipped to Shidoni, New Mexico, to be poured at one of the few foundries capable of casting monumental-sized bronzes. The cast bronze sections were then transported to Eagle Bronze in Lander, Wyoming, for final assembly. In the spring of 2006, five huge sections were transported on flatbed trucks to El Paso to be assembled and installed on site prior to the April dedication.
Viewing the finished sculpture, John Houser enthuses, "This monument is unique because it was not conceived by a committee nor was one dollar of tax money involved. Over $1 million dollars (63% of the total cost) was raised privately by the XII Traveler's Volunteer Organization. It is public art, of, for and by the public, and I find as much satisfaction in the history of the monument's evolution as I do in its completion."
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