Dedecker considers message she’ll leave

LOVELAND — As she does her work, Loveland bronze sculptor Jane DeDecker likes to think of the messages she’ll leave behind, since the material she works with has a lasting quality.

DeDecker wants the message for her latest endeavor, the Women’s Suffrage National Monument, to particularly make an impact today and for decades to come. The monument, which DeDecker will complete with a design team, will be called the Every Word We Utter Monument and be located in Washington, D.C.

“It’s really time to have this monument there,” said DeDecker, a sculptor for 36 years and the owner of DeDecker Studio in Loveland. “These women fought so hard for equity and equality. Families matter. Women matter. It’s an important message to have in Washington.”

DeDecker is the first sculptor named to the design team for the monument, which will be designed and created by artists selected through a nationwide search. She is cofounder of the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation designated by Congress; the foundation’s role is to establish a monument in D.C. commemorating women’s fight for the right to vote and honoring the pioneers of the movement for women’s equality. The monument will add to the small collection of outdoor monuments telling women’s stories, which represent only 5% of all public monuments.

“I’ve always been there for the underdog, an advocate for people’s voices, the stories that need to be told,” said DeDecker, who was named to the design team in March. “I think women’s causes are human causes. We are advocates for the earth, for humanity.”

DeDecker got the idea for the Women’s Suffrage National Monument when she was a finalist to design the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument to be placed in Central Park. Sculptor Meredith Bergmann was selected to create the monument, which represents Sojourner Truth, Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to commemorate the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote. Her monument was unveiled in August 2020 and is the first in the park to depict actual women.

DeDecker figured a similar monument should be located in the nation’s capital alongside its other memorials, especially, since like in Central Park, there isn’t anything honoring the contributions of women. Her rendering represents six women, but it’s too large and ambitious for the New York park site, though not for D.C., she said.

“That sparked the idea to have a women’s monument, but I didn’t know I needed a law passed,” DeDecker said.

DeDecker worked with her friend Jody Shadduck-McNally, a Larimer County commissioner, to spearhead sponsorship for H.R.473 and S.B.1705. The legislation passed in 2020 to allow the monument to be placed in D.C., falling on the 100-year anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment. 

Shadduck-McNally and DeDecker’s husband, Kyle Dallabetta, owner of The Muse in Loveland, are also cofounders of the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation, but Shadduck-McNally is stepping aside and Colleen Shogun, vice chairwoman of the National Suffrage Commission, is taking her place.

The next steps for the monument involve identifying a site and raising money to pay for the cost of materials and construction, which DeDecker estimates at $10 million to $30 million (donations can be made at womensmonument.org). 

“Until we have a site, we can’t design the sculpture,” DeDecker said, adding that she plans to represent the six women she planned to represent in her Central Park monument design. “It tells a more inclusive story of the suffrage movement.”

The Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation is in process of signing a contract with an engineering firm for the site selection, which could take 1.5 to two years and seven to 10 years until final installation, said Anna Laymon, executive director of the foundation. The foundation also will consult with sculptors and identify best practices to create the piece, as well as select the rest of the design team, though the number of sculptors on the project is undetermined, she said. 

“We’re expecting ours to take longer because we’re going to ensure we’re going to get a great site,” Layman said. “It’s a long process but that’s as it should be. It’s something that should be done with care.”

DeDecker is certain the monument will consist of bronze, as well as possibly granite — both materials have a lasting quality, she said. 

“My hope for the monument is we can just inspire women and young women and I hope that really shows the strength of women,” DeDecker said. “We all played a role and now we get a chance to be recognized for all that we’ve done and still do and will always do.”

DeDecker was selected in part because of her involvement in the early stages of the foundation, Laymon said.

“We find it important to honor that early role and the vision she had. It wouldn’t have happened without her,” Laymon said. “She knows this history forward and backward. She’s the type of artist wanting to bring heart and soul to a project like this.”

Laymon also likes the thought DeDecker puts into the details of her work. 

“Her work has poetry to it. You see it and connect to it emotionally,” Laymon said. “Her work, especially with women and children, has a magical quality to it. You almost can feel the soul of the people she’s sculpting.”

DeDecker’s sister Margaret DeDecker Rey of the Claggett/Rey Gallery in Edwards, shows DeDecker’s work and considers her talents to be immeasurable in today’s art world.  

“Her ability to capture an emotion, a personality, an allegory through delicate sweeps of clay transforms her subjects into a four-dimensional experience,” DeDecker Rey said. “If you can transport the viewer to become a part of the narrative of a work of art, then you have bridged a gap that most artists strive their whole careers to achieve. Jane has achieved this and more in her figures.”

Suzanne Janssen, public art manager of the city of Loveland Department of Cultural Services, likes how DeDecker strives to communicate the human condition through her artistry. 

“Her figures tell their own story through their facial expressions, body movements and carriage. She is masterful in her ability to bend and mold clay in such a way that we feel as if we know her subjects,” Janssen said. “(She) is absolutely committed to presenting key figures in the fight for all women’s right to vote. Serving as the lead artist on this monument demonstrates her commitment to telling their stories as well as her commitment to artistry within her work. Jane’s personal portrayals of these bold, tenacious women, who demanded a seat at the table, is remarkable.”

DeDecker studied art in college and did a summer apprenticeship at George Lundeen’s studio, Lundeen Sculpture in Loveland, which turned into a studio assistant job she held for eight years. While there, she learned about sculpting, welding, casting, patinas and waxwork, as well as how to operate a business. Now, she creates four to five life-size and 15 to 20 smaller sculptures a year, and she has more than 180 public sculptures in 39 states.

“I saw art as a business, and that was invaluable as an artist,” DeDecker said. “It’s a hat a lot of artists don’t like to wear, as if you’re not being true to yourself if you sell your work. … If people appreciate your work and want to own it, you really bridged a great connection. I don’t see it as compromising my creativity or intent.”

DeDecker has eight pieces in Loveland at places like the Foote Lagoon, the city and county buildings, Lake Loveland, and Benson Sculpture Garden, including Crossings, Tree and Every Word We Utter, a quarter scale model at the Loveland Municipal building.

“She’s had an exceptional career giving representation to those who are not represented in our public stories,” Laymon said. “That’s something that deserves to be celebrated and honored.”

As DeDecker tells those stories, she uses a style that’s impressionistic and gestural, working in clay, a material that has fluidity and is expressive.

“I always feel like it’s layers of how we’re made with experiences and pitfalls and successes and everything,” DeDecker said. “I like to see the layering of emotion in the clay. When you sculpt you add clay on — it’s like an additive — or you can carve away the clay.”

DeDecker especially likes representing the human figure and has made several historical pieces commemorating women, including Dr. Annie Alexander, Emily Dickinson, Amelia Earhart, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman.

“Whenever I can celebrate a women’s story I’m all about it,” DeDecker said. 

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