Peace poles
made by an artist
What does peace look like? How can one visually represent the moral, political and spiritual dimensions of it? Fortunately a visual vocabulary has been handed down to us by the person who first made poles with peace messages in different languages on each side. There are not other poles so arranged. When you see a vertical pole with various languages laid out like this, you know it is about peace.
But what can be done to enable it to speak more persuasively. What can make it become part of the community? That is what I work on.
I custom make peace poles out of copper, limestone, brass and other materials. So that they will legitimize the message I make peace poles wider and taller to give them "presence." And I make them out of materials that exude substance and endurance. Peace poles should warrant their presence in gardens and parks. They should be interesting and aesthetic. They should last for a long time. And they should connect with the community.
7-sided Limestone 5-sided Copper Resin peace pole 5-sided Bronze
Round Bronze & Copper 3-sided Stainless Peace Stake
To ask questions:
1) Telephone me at 513-348-4744, or
2) Send an email, or
3) Chat with me Live in the box at left if I am at my computer (sometimes it says I'm not when I am. I don't know why). Just click where it says "type here," then type "Hi" and hit enter.
Most peace poles take 6 to 8 weeks to create (limestone needs more time, resin needs less). However, usually I can make deadlines whenever they are.
Making Peace Part of a Community
In 1972 in Cincinnati a sculptor was hired to make a piece of sculpture for the new square in the center of the city. The sculptor built a stainless steel base with a 35 ton block of limestone dropped on top of it.
It was not well liked. I thought that aesthetically it was perfect the way it united the gleaming steel skyscrapers with the stone pavers of the square. But it gained no presence in the community. No one gave directions by saying to turn right at the sculpture. No one said “meet you under the sculpture.” After a while it was moved to another location. And then another. And then another. Now it’s under a bridge.
Fifteen years later another sculptor was hired. The city had built a new park on the waterfront with historical exhibits, pavilions, fountains. They wanted a grand gateway leading the way to that.
The sculptor they hired did some research and learned that in the early 1800s swine herding was so big in Cincinnati that Cincinnati was known as "Porkopolis." If you ate pork in America, it probably came from Cincinnati. The rendered fat left from packing all that made Cincinnati a good place for making soap since, to make soap, you need fat and lye. So Proctor & Gamble grew there. P & G is the world’s largest consumer-products company. It’s gross annual sales are greater than the gross national products of 70% of the countries on earth. And it exists and is in Cincinnati because 200 years ago they herded swine there. The sculptor saw the importance of that history and nodded to it by putting. at the top of the posts on either side of the gate, winged pigs.
Half of the city thought it demeaning and wanted them removed. But the other half laughed. Now winged pigs are an icon in Cincinnati. On menus in restaurants there are dishes named after them. Books have included them on the cover. If you run in the marathon in Cincinnati you are running in the Flying Pig Marathon. You cannot drive around Cincinnati for a day without stumbling on winged pigs one way or the other. They are infused in the culture. That sculpture changed and enriched the culture of Cincinnati by putting it more in touch with itself.
What could be done to a peace pole to give it that kind of presence in a community? I work on that all the time. I have to be more careful than the pig sculptor. If his work caused a backlash, he would be the only one to take the heat for it. But if my work causes a backlash, the entire movement could suffer. So I walk gently, but I do take steps.
Taking Steps
One way I take steps is is by creating questions. Not always be big questions. Small ones can draw people in to a conversation. Like a limestone peacepole I made on which there was to be an inscription explaining that it was an Eagle Scout project, who the scout was, the troop number, dates, etc.
The scout was arranging for it to be put next to his church. It was a very long process with lots of hoops for me to jump through, but at the end I pitched to him this idea. Part of the instructions to me were to put include an inscription saying that it was an Eagle Scout project during a certain year in a certain scout troop. I said to him that the inscription would get only passing attention if we put it nicely on center where everyone expects it, but if we buried half of it, or at least make it look as though we did, that would be different. If we centered the information at ground level in a way that made it appear as though it continued underground, even though all the information actually was above ground, it would raise questions. It would have the potential to be a minor trivial pursuit question locally. Was it a mistake? Did it sink? What does it say below ground? Why didn’t they fix it? One can imagine, 20 years from now, someone writing in to the local paper asking “What’s the deal with that inscription being half buried?” If the journalist did enough homework, the response would be that the artist buried half of it so that someone would write in to ask that question.
For another peace pole, made for a church, globes were important to them. So were the numbers three and seven. So there are translations on three levels for a total of thirty-three translations. A symbol important to them was etched seven times in a ring three inches wide encircling the pole. Three spires reached out of the top. Seven animal tracks ringed the bottom. Mercator projections of the globe were its cap.
These are quiet steps in becoming part of communities. I'm searching for additional ones.
Public Art
Since the first peace pole was made more than 50 years ago, more than 300,000 have been "planted" everywhere from the North Pole to the Gaza Strip. At their planting ceremonies they have been dedicated by everyone from President Jimmy Carter to Mother Theresa. They are not responses to any specific armed conflict. As there are monuments to war, these are monuments to peace. Usually they are purchased by non-profit groups and "planted" in parks or at schools or churches. Some also go to private gardens at people's homes. I made one peacepole for a family that was designing a garden around it for their daughter's wedding. Another was for the center of a labyrinth at a retreat. Quite a few have been given as gifts, sometimes from graduating classes after a period of fund raising.
Sometimes people spend a year raising funds before they order their peace poles. Broad based community support for such projects is common, as is shown in this newspaper article about a peace pole I shipped to Opa-Locka, Florida.
How to make your own peace pole
What search brought you here? Any of these search terms? peacepoles, peace poles, peacepoles.com, may peace prevail on earth, world peace, peace symbol, peace symbols, peace message, peace garden, peace organizations, world peace society, peace on earth, garden art, garden sculpture, peace pole makers USA, promote peace, or something else? It would help me to know.
If you find any dead links, or anything that is confusing, I'd appreciate hearing about it. Thanks.