The new Gateway statue, “Breakin’ Through,” depicting a cowgirl riding Steamboat as the two of them break through a wall, is nearing completion and the dedication is on track to take place next Thursday.
Ben Blalock, the president and CEO of the University of Wyoming Foundation, said the statue holds a great deal of symbolic significance for the university and our state as a whole.
“You see works of art with cowboy riders and bucking horses all over the state and this particular one is special,” Blalock said. “There was a sense that this particular work of art, the way that it was done by D. Michael Thomas, in breaking through a wall could make a statement in terms of woman leadership in breaking through, and so that’s where the name evolved from. We feel it’s a wonderful tribute to women leadership in our state.”
Artists Chris Navarro and D. Michael Thomas were selected by Gateway project contributors and asked to compete with each other to create a dramatic depiction of a horse and rider to act as a defining symbol for the university. But at the end of that process, the UW Foundation board found both of their pitches compelling and commissioned both to be made. Navarro’s finished statue “Wyoming Cowboy” currently sits in front of the Gateway building and Thomas’s “Breakin’ Through” is on the verge of completion.
Thomas has done artistic work on the campus before, most notably the “Talk About Your Cowboy” statue in the front lawn of the Alumni House. He continues the proud tradition of commemorating the brave souls of Wyoming’s past as well as our state’s most famous bucking bronco with “Breakin’ Through.”
“I was asked by the university’s foundation board for an idea of Steamboat and I kind of thought outside the box on this one,” Thomas said. “I felt they already had a few Steamboats placed around the campus and I wanted something a little different. At first I had a man on the horse, in a small maquette, and when April Brimmer Kunz saw it, she of course fell in love with it, but she asked me if I would consider doing a cowgirl and I thought it was a great idea.”
Other than that input by Kunz, Thomas was given full artistic freedom to sculpt the statue as he saw fit. Thomas said he found that while transferring to the monument stage of the piece, the toughest part was the scale.
“To work on scaffolding, day in and day out, it kind of wears on you,” said Thomas.
Thomas said the building he was working in on the statue wasn’t the proper size and it was difficult for him to judge the appropriate sizes of the different parts of the statue.
“Breakin’ Through” was funded by Marian H. Rochelle, her daughter April Brimmer Kunz, as well as Mick and Susan McMurray, who also made a large contribution to the Gateway building as a whole.
