I am overjoyed and humbled to share that Liberty Wept has won the People’s Choice Award at the Percival Plinth Project in Olympia, WA — and Olympia’s City Council has officially voted to purchase her for permanent public display.
When I loaded her into a cargo van on June 26th with the help of my partner and community at Past Lives Makerspace in Portland, I told myself not to get my hopes up, as I had only been making metal sculptures for a year after all. Plus, she was just one of 14 amazing sculptures accepted for this year’s Percival Plinth Project. She was my first large-scale piece, sculpted just five months into my welding journey.
Now, she’s a permanent fixture in Olympia.
I don’t have words to express my gratitude and wonder (which is ironic, given that I’ve spent most of my life being a playwright and an author…not to mention just downright loquacious whenever anyone else is present, including animals).
What Liberty Wept Means
Silence is complicity, so I spoke the only way I knew how. Liberty Wept came from fear for our country and a desperate need to respond to these unprecedented times. Grief, when you forge it into steel and fire, becomes a different kind of force entirely.
She is 6’3″ tall (9’3″ on her plinth!) and weighs over nearly 200 pounds. She is built from reclaimed chains, wrenches, tools, and industrial steel—the debris of the working world, reassembled into something that mourns. She weeps because sometimes that is the only honest response.
People left flowers at her base. Someone suggested gathering in funeral attire on the Fourth of July. A small American flag appeared among the blooms. She was doing what she was made to do on the first day of voting.
Thank You
To the Past Lives Makerspace community in Portland, who gathered on a June morning to help load her into a van and send her off with love. She left in community because she was built in community.
To Brian, who drove with me to Olympia and helped place her on the plinth and his unending, loving support.
To everyone who voted, who shared the link, who sent messages of support, who told me she moved them. You helped her find a permanent home.
To the people of Olympia, who walked past her on the waterfront boardwalk, discussing her and spreading the word. She belongs to you now.
And to Liberty Wept herself—you did it, old girl.
Stay strong. Our country needs you.
Christine Rose
@christine.rose.artist | christineroseauthor.com
Christine Rose 
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