ValentinaBlackhorseSculpture

This is a duplicate update of a couple of weeks ago to my "sister fundraiser," - the URGENT Medical Fundraiser I have been running since the Takubsubo attack and stroke I experienced in 2024 - to keep those donating to the waxwork on the Valentina Blackhorse Project informed of the forward motion on the sculpture and current status!

From August 4th
It was deeply moving to welcome members of the Blackhorse family to Sedona from Kayenta to view the work in progress. I had not seen Valentina’s mother, Laverne, or Valentina's sister, Vanielle, in several years, and it was my first time meeting any of the children.

Before showing them the clay, I introduced the family to pieces by John Soderberg as well as Jill Trenholm’s “Tree of Oneness” and “Deer Woman” —so I could show them the masters I've been privileged to study under since 2020+. When we arrived at the studio, seeing Valentina’s sculpture was an emotional moment for everyone, especially Laverne and young Poet Bessie Blackhorse, who was just a baby when her mother passed away from COVID-19 in 2020. Before they headed back to Kayenta for the start of the school year, Jill gave the girls crystals and told them how to "charge" them in the moonlight.

Seeing the family's reaction has truly reignited my drive to bring this tribute to completion. Even though I am still working through physical challenges and haven't fully regained feeling on my right side, I feel that NOW is the time to keep going - so I am fundraising again to get back in to the studio ASAP so I can power on through…and bring this sculpture across the finish line. 

Thank you so much for your support and contributions of any amount!

An Update on the Valentina Blackhorse Monumental Sculpture Project - by Beverly

I am reaching out to give you all an important—and incredibly hopeful—update on a project that is very close to my heart: the Valentina Blackhorse sculpture.

This journey began back during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 at John Soderberg’s studio, long before I met Jill Trenholm and before John became ill. Originally, the goal was to present the piece to then-Navajo Nation President Nez and Dr. Jill Biden at Window Rock by May 2021, with the ultimate vision of placing it at the Kayenta Medical Center to honor Valentina’s memory and recognize the community's sacrifices.

I was on track to meet that deadline when John suddenly became ill in January 2021. For safety and security, while he was hospitalized, he asked me to move my work out of the studio, putting the project on a long hold. It wasn't until much later that I met Jill and she invited me back into the studio to work alongside John until his passing. When we eventually closed the Soderberg Studio, the piece sat safely in Jill’s living room for months until Trenholm Studios finally opened its doors.

As many of you know, life threw a few more major hurdles my way. Shortly after losing my mother, and just weeks after stepping back into the studio, I suffered a stroke and a heart event, followed then months later by a broken wrist. These health challenges and recovery time forced me to put the clay on hold again for the last year and a half.

But the story isn't over.

Out of the blue, I recently heard from Valentina’s sister. I had been trying to reach her and her mother in Kayenta for a long time to get their vital feedback before moving forward, but transportation limitations for me now after the stroke and lost phone contact had made it impossible. Hearing from them now feels like a profound sign so I am giving this project one more passionate try.

This sculpture is about more than just the past; it is about bringing awareness, community support, and healing from the collective aftermath of the pandemic. To bring this project back on track and bring Valentina’s memory to life, I need to raise the funds for studio space, the wax phase, and ultimately, the final bronze casting and patina work.

If you are able to donate, or if you know of any benefactors who want to support this meaningful tribute, please consider contributing to my fundraiser.

Thank you to everyone who has stayed by my side through this long journey. 

I definitely noticed

I haven’t worked in Photoshop much since before my stroke last year and I don’t remember a lot of the functions so it has been rather challenging to get this quite right. My dexterity is off, but I was trying to get a sense of what the clay sculpture of Valentina would look like after bronzed. And this is NOT quite it! Yet.

But I can’t wait to get to this stage of work. I’ve been contemplating asking another artist to help me with a different kind of base/stand that I have in mind for the final placement that will add a unique character. But we’re still quite a ways from that stage!

At this point, I’m still trying to get to the wax mold point and I am fundraising to get these molds completed and get back into the studio to work on the wax chasing phase of the sculpture after the molds are made and I have the wax rendition of the sculpture in hand.

I’m still slowly trying to network and make contacts for placement somewhere in the Kayenta area and hopefully the Kayenta Medical Center is still a possibility. I haven’t been able to get to the locations I have wanted to visit over the last year+plus now, but I am still hoping for an arrangement for the final placement of the sculpture.

At this point it’s still a matter of finishing! …so I’m continuing the fundraisers at this time - so thank you for any contributions you can send and I will continue with the project to the best of my ability!

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I was blessed to have the (name-dropping) help of Terry I, Michael Colpitts, and Brian Walker to relocate the Valentina Blackhorse sculpture into the house for final detail work before the wax casting phase last November 13th - the day I finally had to move the sculpture. Realizations of the events of October had just crept up on me - I had the momentum going with interest from possible grant funding and my backers on my side, but with the broken right wrist factoring in, and starting to run thin on $, I really rather sensed that day that I might be walking right into limbo again - such as when I had to remove the sculpture from John Soderburg’s studio the first time in 2021 and I had no place to work for two years - until I met Jill and she brought me back into John’s studio for his last few months…! It has now been six months since that day in November and the moment I had to leave Jill’s studio. And again, production on the piece is stalled.

The Valentina Blackhorse Memorial sculpture was intended to serve as a homage to not only to one individual’s story, but to so many who lost their lives when COVID swept thru the Navajo Nation. I was present during the time when that wave occurred. Driving back-and-forth across the Navajo Nation from Arizona to Colorado to visit with a friend of mine who was on her own path to transitioning on the Western Slope of Colorado.

Although I was on the periphery, I could sense the effect it was having on the communities. Entrances barred. Signs saying “move on, keep going” urging people not to stop and chance spreading the virus. It was just a very strange and isolating time with the underlying threat lurking across the land. From my perspective as a non-native, I was concerned about making the correct choices going forward - an Anglo crafting an image of someone of the Diné. Would it be understood, and accepted that this was not just a project considered to be a pursuit of art for its own sake?

This was not intended to be a project to draw attention to myself, as I had a talent for sculpting that had been lying dormant during the COVID pandemic. But part of my thinking had been - that during a time when people on the East Coast were tearing down bronzes of those they felt had disgraced the country… maybe the meaning of what I was trying to offer was missed. Bronzes crafted by an unknown white woman on the Navajo Nation might not have the same appreciation. I had heard a woman from the Iroquois Nation who had spoken up on Public Radio about how we did not have enough monumental pieces honoring Indigenous people and that more bronzes would be a way to honor the memory… which further motivated me to go talk to Laverne and Vaneilie Blackhorse, (Valentina’s mother and sister) to ask permission and to see if this would be an appropriate way to honor Valentina’s memory. And when that permission was granted, that was how the sculpture of Valentina began, although I had never know of her before and never met her, her story so moved me and as I learned more about her and her achievements, I became more and more invested in the project.

When I lost my own aunt to COVID in July of 2020, I made the decision to move my mother to Sedona, near the studio, to continue my work and to make sure my mother remained safe from the virus. It was a big deal back then. I think many people have forgotten.