Amanda Markel has been thinking lately about the legacy she wants to leave behind.  

“What is the mark you want to leave on the world? How can you leave it a better place?” she asks herself. 

The 31-year-old Bozeman artist has been sculpting bronze for interested buyers for the past five years, and she finally debuted her first public installation, the largest piece she’s ever created.  

Observers at the Benson Sculpture Garden in Loveland, Colorado, can see “Ridge Runners,” a sculpture forged in the Kalispell Art Foundry depicting a trio of bounding bronze wolves that spans 14 feet and weighs 1,000 pounds. 

Bronze is an expensive medium to work with, so getting to share her art with the public and leave a positive mark was something she’s always wanted to do.  

“It’s not just something that people get to enjoy now. It’s also something that people get to enjoy several hundred years from now,” Markel said about her latest project. 

Each metal wolf is mid-stride and only attached to the ground by one foot and welded together at the hips.  

“It kind of symbolizes the way that we need each other. We need people in our lives that we can lean on and that will help us be strong. And I think that really, we need more of that in the world right now,” Markel said.  “I think that there’s a lot that we can learn from wolves because they’re also very family-oriented.” 

A noticeable feature of "Ridge Runners” and many of her sculptures is her use of negative space.  Rather than creating solid, enclosed bronze figures, she likes to mimic the characteristics of a drawing.  

“I really love the simplicity of a sketch, and I love lost edges, and I love color fades and things like that. I was really trying to figure out, how can I simplify bronze and make it look light and allow things to just flow a little bit more?” she said. 

The empty space also left room for another unique feature: Inside each wolf is a mountain range.  

One wolf has the Bridger Mountains inside it. Another has the Tetons and the third depicts the view of Glacier National Park from Many Glacier Hotel.  

“I wanted to represent mountains that were unique and iconic, that people would be able to recognize. But I also wanted to represent places that have wolves there naturally,” she said.  

The mountains also hold a symbolic meaning, she said. To form a mountain, the Earth has to buckle and break.   

“I really was trying to depict what happens inside of us when we’re going through a hard time, because we get broken and fractured,” she said. “So, it’s kind of visually portraying that when you’re going through something hard, good things are being built inside you.”  

LIKE ALL of Markel’s sculptures, it was born from a sketch.     

From the sketch, she builds an armature for the framework. While she usually uses wire, the sculpture’s size required foam so it wouldn’t get too heavy.  She had to put all her furniture in a storage unit so she could use her living room as a studio.     

The armature was then lathered in a non-drying clay and sculpted. She spent hours detailing every muscle and every hair, which takes lots of trial and error.  

“I cut off all of their legs, probably 30 different times independently, just like sawing them all off. Anytime one of my friends would come in and say ‘Hi’, they were like, ‘What is happening?’” she laughed. 

Getting the face right was important because that’s how people connect with art. Her red heeler became a great help in getting the structure right.  

"My dog was a great model,” she laughed. “He was very patient with me.” 

Markel also spent time at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone observing how the canines moved and interacted.   

To get each mountainscape right, she pored over hundreds of pictures. Unlike a one-dimensional painting, every angle is depicted in a sculpture.  

The entire sculpting process took a year.  

After the clay sculpture was completed, it was carefully shipped to the Kalispell Art Foundry to be transformed into a bronze statue.  

“The process is very, very complicated. There’s like 13 different steps. There’s a ton of different people that touch the piece from start to finish. They’re all very, very skilled craftsmen,” Markel said of the foundry.  

Markel’s clay sculpture was first butchered into roughly 100 different parts so separate molds could be made.  

A rubber mold is made from the clay sculpture and filled with hot wax to create a hollow casing. The wax is then dipped in sand several times, forming a hard outer cast.  

When put in a kiln, the inner wax burns off, leaving the hardened sand mold.   

Molten bronze is then poured in the molds. After cooling, the sand casing is broken off and each metal piece is welded together, resurrecting Markel’s original clay sculpture.  

To give the wolves the shaded coloring, the bronze goes through a process called patina, which involves using chemicals and heat to alter the metal’s surface.    

The sculpture usually spends three to four months in the foundry, Markel said.  

WHILE MARKEL didn't collaborate with foundries until 2020, she has been sculpting since she was a toddler, making shapes in the mud in Colorado Springs, Colorado.   

Living on a few acres with horses, cats, dogs and chickens, she grew up with an affinity toward animals and the outdoors, ripping around on dirt bikes and chopping down yuccas with machetes.   

Markel began recognizing the power of art at 15 years old, selling her work to fundraise for a child care program in Swaziland, Africa. 

“We were doing a good thing and fundraising, but the impact that the art was having on the people that were buying it was also significant,” she said.  

At 19, Markel moved to Bozeman, where she still lives 12 years later.  

“I wanted to try something different for a year. So, I just went on an adventure to see what would happen. And I loved it so much I just never left,” she said. 

It was in Bozeman that she took part in the Montana Entrepreneurship Program that paired her with a mentor who introduced her to bronze sculpting, and five years later has no intentions of slowing down.  

Markel has six large bronze monuments sketched out that she hopes to eventually share with the world and continue to portray human resiliency and perseverance through her work.    

“Whatever is happening right now, it’s not going to be forever. And so don’t get discouraged. But also, don’t let it pass you by. Use every moment and be present,” Markel said.  

Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 and [email protected].  

 Initial sketch for "Ridge Runners" bronze sculpture. (Photo courtesy of Amanda Markel)
  

    Amanda Markel next to her bronze sculpture, "Ridge Runners," displayed in Benson Sculpture Garden in Colorado. (Photo courtesy of Amanda Markel)
  

    Amanda Markel working on her clay sculpture, "Ridge Runners." (Photo courtesy of Amanda Markel)
  

    Molten bronze in molds at Kalispell Art Foundry. (Photo courtesy of Amanda Markel)
  

    Amanda Markel working on her clay sculpture, "Ridge Runners." (Photo courtesy of Amanda Markel)
  

    Molten bronze being poured in molds at the Kalispell Art Foundry. (Photo courtesy of Amanda Markel)