NEW ULM — American Artstone Company of New Ulm has won several state and national awards over the years. They are a well known and respected company all across the Midwest and the country. But Artstone is mostly known for decorative facade on buildings and restoration projects. They have never tackled a project like this. Over the course of the last 18 months, Artstone has been working on a project for a hospital in Carroll, Iowa. The work consisted of a new addition to the hospital, a parking ramp and what has turned into a sense of pride for Artstone — a statue of St. Anthony for the side of the hospital building. The statue was the biggest artistic project Artstone has ever attempted and they are ecstatic with the way it turned out. 'This is something that is not typical for someone in our industry," Mark Rolle, Artstone's manager of sales and estimating said. 'We looked at this as an opportunity to showcase what the abilities were of our plant personnel and the artisans that work here." Building the statue of St. Anthony was no small undertaking. St. Anthony is 31-feet-10-inches tall and 10-feet-6-inches wide. It took 48,000 pounds of blended Cast Stone concrete, 2,600 pounds of modeling clay and because of its size, the statue was built in four sections weighing a minimum of 11,000 pounds each. The sections had to be shipped to Iowa two at a time because they all couldn't fit on a single truck. The last shipment left late last week.

The project lasted 18 months from the time the bid was submitted to the time it left the factory floor in New Ulm. The project wouldn't have gotten very far with out the help of artist Jason Jaspersen, an art teacher at Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School. Artstone and Jaspersen have collaborated before. He was the artist on the Gertie Goose sculpture that sits in Riverside Park in Goosetown in New Ulm and he worked on the St. James Library project which Artstone recently completed. Jaspersen spent 292 hours working on the project and because of the size of each piece, Artstone rented a heated work space for him to work, in order to not take space away from their already crowded production floor. 'We had to be able to build it in one spot, be able to move the individual pieces back to our shop so we could start the mold fabrication process," Rolle said. 'Because our workspace is so valuable, we couldn't bring the whole thing in here at one time. So we brought in a section at a time and got that done, before bringing in another one." The whole idea for the sculpture came from an original statue of St. Anthony that was at the hospital when it was built several years ago. The hospital wanted the new statue to look as if it were carved out of the side of the building. 'The technology has come around and has brought a feasibility back into ornamentation artistry in the industry," Rolle said. 'So versus having a stone mason on the side of the building for a year and a half carving a statue, we were able to do it in seven months for 1/50 of the cost."

The first challenge in creating the statue was all that Artstone had to work with were a few pictures of the original at the Carroll Hospital. 'We usually have drawings and specifications to work from," plant manager Al Schumacher said. 'But this was a just picture of a statue they had there. 'It's amazing that we were able to take something of that scale on. It was a huge undertaking and it turned out great." Jaspersen started with a 1/16-scale model that Artstone showed the hospital architect and hospital administrator. Upon approval he made a 1/4-scale model. When that was approved the project was ready to begin. First the statue hit the drafting room, there they took the pictures, scanned them in and brought them to full scale with a computer animated drafting program to get the correct specifications. Then the drafters printed out a full-scale template which was a profile of St. Anthony. After that, the template went to the shop floor where a wood positive of the outside perimeter of St. Anthony was made. They glued foam to the plywood and took a chainsaw and started cutting out the shape. Then Jaspersen refined the rough cut styrofoam by applying modeling clay to make the positive of the statue, and the next step was to spray a urethane rubber over the entire structure. 'That is a thin coating of rubber that is put over the entire surface," Schumacher said. 'It holds all the detail. Whatever is on the positive is going to come through on the rubber." After the urethane is applied, they fill the backside of the rubber mold with concrete. 'We rolled the concrete and rubber mold over and then we removed all of the clay and foam so all we have is the negative of St. Anthony," Schumacher said. 'Then we poured concrete in it to make the positive. After curing, we pulled the stone out and peeled the rubber mold off of it and we have the sculpture."

When it was all done, they lined up the four pieces of the sculpture on the production room floor just to see how big it actually was going to be. 'This was a unique opportunity we had here," Rolle said. 'To work on this project and from experience we had on other projects it was a matter of using the same technology and blowing up the scale. The biggest intimidation was the size of the project. The statue started three stories up and the bottom of his feet are roughly 30 feet in the air." 'We always laughed because he looked so big in the shop," Schumacher added. 'Then when he gets put on the side of the building, he sure doesn't look as big." The final part of the project was getting St. Anthony to Carroll and having it fastened to the wall of the building. 'We do the engineering for what's required to adhere the pieces to the building," Rolle said. 'We make sure everything we design can be installed and shipped where it needs to go."
One of the most difficult parts was customizing the split-face stone to go around St. Anthony's feet. 'We custom formed the stone so it exactly fit around his feet," Rolle said.
Originally, the hospital administrator wanted to keep the project under wraps because the wing of the hospital isn't scheduled to open until January 2009. So Artstone was trying to find a way to hide it. If they covered it with plastic, how would they keep it from staining the statue.  But Rolle said the hospital got so excited about seeing the progress of St. Anthony they wanted to show it off. 'In the town of Carroll, the hospital is the most significant industry," Rolle said. 'As you come into town you can see the hospital on the hillside. St. Anthony, you will be able to see him as you are driving into town. It will be kind of like their Hermann, and they are excited about it."

Now St. Anthony will be the pride of Carroll and the pride of Artstone too. 'I believe the St. Anthony project represents the finest and best in the quality workmanship that American Artstone Company has to offer," Artstone president and CEO, Jennifer Thompson said. 'This project, while large in scale, reflects the artisanship and talent of our people and what they do day in and day out on any number of marvelous projects."