St. Francis Story

Item #167

(October, 1981) St. Francis was a man who gave up wealth to work single-handedly restoring ruined churches. Although he could have worked alone, many converts wanted to be with him and work with him. I wanted to create a statue of him that would reveal both his charisma and his understanding of nature and people. I chose the face of Will Rogers, the wonderful humorist from Oklahoma. He is wearing the Franciscan robe of course, brown material, secured with a rope belt tied in the traditional manner. The base sometimes has two birds, one, or none at all.

Dr. Thomas F. Clark