Windsor’s Craig Bergsgaard always knew he wanted to create things with his hands. So for years, he would come home from building houses all day and do woodworking.
“My house became stuffed full of custom furniture before I realized that I had been ignoring a stronger creative urge,” said Bergsgaard, 57.
Then he got some sage advice from an art teacher in his bowling league: Try forming clay sculptures.
“I have never looked back,” he said. “With each passing sculpture, my appreciation of the medium and living forms (has) grown.”
Bergsgaard’s latest work, “Memorare, Sand Creek 1864,” which commemorates one of the darkest days in Colorado history, will be unveiled today at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Ga.
The work, which took about six months to complete, depicts the end result of the Sand Creek Massacre in southeastern Colorado from an American Indian point of view.
Historians say that early on Nov. 29, 1864, nearly 700 Colorado Territory militia members attacked and killed more than 150 unarmed Cheyenne and Arapaho men, women and children.
The incident was initially reported as a great victory for the militia over marauding Indians. But within months, congressional inquiries unearthed the truth about the massacre.
Bergsgaard’s work depicts a man bearing his wife’s lifeless body across his knees as he holds aloft two arrows and a fragment of an American flag.
While researching his piece, Bergsgaard visited the Sand Creek site and became entranced by its sad history.
“Living in the West, I understand, but I am also conflicted by Manifest Destiny,” Bergsgaard said.
“There are numerous accounts of battles and atrocities, fair or not, of the Western expansion, but this affected me like no other.”
Few people outside of Colorado are aware of the Sand Creek Massacre, which is why Bergsgaard’s sculpture was picked for the Georgia museum, said executive director Seth Hopkins.
Hopkins said, “I think it brings attention to a tragic moment in our history, similar to Wounded Knee,” where 146 Lakota Sioux in South Dakota were killed by the Army in 1890. “We are proud to have it.”
The museum has the largest exhibit space for Western art in the United States, Hopkins said.
Bergsgaard also keeps a studio in Arizona where he shows his work at the annual Arizona Fine Art Expo in Scottsdale.
“Craig is a unique talent,” Hopkins said. “If anyone can bring this tragedy to light, he can.”
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a reporting error, the artist was identified as Greg Bergsgaard instead of Craig.
