Carver shapes pair of snow bears

“Montana’s first polar bears” says sculptor Will Richards of the two snow carvings on the corner of his brother Larry’s place on Fulkerson Lane, east of Polson.

The snow bears are sleek and graceful, emerging from a small patch of trees with black noses and eyes. The corner where the bears reside ”just needed a little touch of something,” says Will.

The brothers, who grew up in Butte, worked on the project together for two days, piling and compressing a 4’ by 4’ block of snow until Will had something substantial enough to carve.

“I’m a sculptor, a stone carver and I thought, ‘I want to do something in snow.’ It’s free and it’s right here – I’ve got all I can use.”

“I was trying to do a regular grizzly bear,” he adds. “I wanted it eight feet tall, standing, but it wasn’t snowing enough so I just carved it out of a big square and squeezed two in.”

He credits his brother with contributing shovel work and clean-up, “and he tried to direct me.”

“I know my position,” Larry, the eldest, replied. “I’m the assistant assistant.”

Will moved to Polson in June from Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles, where he’s lived for the past 48 years. “I had a beautiful place there,” he says.

His brother had been living alone for a long time. “He needs some company,” says Will. “I just decided it was time for a change.”

Larry, 74, was a champion amateur boxer during high school and his stint in the U.S. Army. His athletic prowess is memorialized by a plaque in the Butte Civic Center’s Sports Hall of Fame (he was inducted in 2011), and in a painting by Will, who says, “He’s pretty famous in Butte.”

He even beat the Flathead Reservation’s boxing legend Marvin Camel during a long-ago bout in Polson.

Larry hasn’t boxed since he left the Army. He went to school and became a special education teacher, finishing his career with the Polson School District.

Will, the youngest by two years, always had an affinity for art, and has been selling his paintings and sculptures since he was 14. The self-taught artist has made a living from his work for nearly five decades.

“When we were in high school art class he did all my work,” says Larry.

“He always passed,” notes Will.

The move to Montana has forced the artist to rethink his themes. On Catalina, with the Pacific Ocean all around, he focused on sea life, including dolphins and whales. But here, “that kind of stuff doesn’t really sell.” Instead he’s turning toward the animals and landscapes of his childhood.

He has a basement studio at this brother’s house where he paints and carves. Inside the studio space, he shows a recent painting of a buffalo and the headstone he completed for his beloved dog who died a month ago.

He’s also created an outside work space, he says, pointing to a circle of rocks, each perched on a round of fire wood with a fire pit in the middle.

“I’m going to carve them all at once,” he says. “I’ll work on one, go to the next – let them all evolve.”

He harvested the chunks of soapstone from Catalina Island, in Utah and near Dillon – “wherever I find it.” Some of the pieces will be green, others white when they’re finished. “You never know what you’re going to get until you start carving to see what’s inside.”

He anticipates that one tall, almost rectangular shape could become a mountain goat, emerging from a cliff, or a white bird.

“I just start grinding it down and whatever the rock tells me, that’s what I do,” he says. ”The rock has to dictate what it’s going to be.”

A grinder, drill and file are among his tools. He’s currently working on piece of pale green soapstone.

“It just had this glow to it so I skinned it down and it told me to do an angel,” he says. The figure that’s emerging has one outstretched wing and another folded around her. “It’s got a flow to it, as long as I let it tell me what it is.”

While soapstone is easier to carve than many kinds of rock, it’s also unforgiving. “You can’t make mistakes. Once it’s gone it’s gone.”

Of course, the two snow bears outside are a different matter. A week of above-freezing temperatures could dispatch them quickly. But Will doesn’t seem worried. “They’re going to freeze up pretty good,” he predicts.

And meanwhile, they’ve been a conversation starter. “It’s been hard to meet people,” he says of his new home. But since the bears appeared, “All the neighbors are stopping by and saying something nice and we’re getting to meet them.”

To see the snow bears, head north on Hwy. 35, go straight at the first corner onto Fulkerson Lane, follow it around another corner, and look the first house on the right – but don’t wait until the thaw comes.