Crystal Lake sculptor’s latest creation: 8-feet-tall bust of Chicago settler DuSable

Crystal Lake-based artist Erik Blome microwaved a handful of clay at a time in his Woodstock art studio. Piece by piece and over years of time, those handfuls of clay turned into a 8.5-foot-tall molding of Chicago founder Jean Baptiste Point DuSable.

That molding was then casted into pieces of solid bronze and welded together to create Blome’s latest sculpture title “Explorer.”

And the sculpture will live up to its name. Currently sitting in front of the Evanston Public Library, Blome plans on taking the sculpture to different locations.

“I actually want it to travel around,” he said.

In 2009, Blome originally created a life-sized version of DuSable, which sits on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. DuSable was a trader of African descent who arrived in what became Chicago in the late 18th century. He’s regarded as the first non-native person to settle in Chicago, whose famous Lake Shore Drive now bears his name.

Now the larger-than-life version that weighs over a ton and stands 8½ feet tall will be in Evanston until fall of next year. From there, it will be in Fort Mackinac, Michigan. Blome chose that location for the historical significance of when DuSable was imprisoned there during the American Revolution.

Other future locations could be at DePaul University and the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center in Chicago, he said.

The massive project is described as a “labor of love” since Blome poured his own money into the project, which he estimates cost him about $80,000.

Lemar Wilson, an artist and art teacher at Stanton Middle School in Fox Lake, has assisted Blome on his projects since 2016. He said this project was “the most personal” for Blome because it was his first that wasn’t commissioned.

“This is the first one to work with him to create something and put it out there just for the sake of doing it,” Wilson said.

The toughest part of the of project was manipulating and welding the bronze pieces into one large sculpture, Wilson said.

“Just like life, nothing quite goes the way as planned,” he said. “The weather constantly changing, the highs and lows, the metal is going to shrink and expand depending on the weather it’s in.”

Blome has public artworks scattered across the world including statues of hockey players outside of stadiums in Canada and a stone sculpture in Egypt.

His art can be found in Crystal Lake, like a statue at the ComEd headquarters, and busts in the Raue Center for the Arts. Other local works of art can be found in Waukegan, DeKalb, Aurora and Mount Prospect.

DuSable is one of many historical Black figures Blome has sculpted in his career. Other famous figures include Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and Duke Ellington.

Blome’s favorite projects are of people who aren’t as recognized. One day, he would like to make a sculpture of American cyclist Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor, he said.

“Sometimes the ones that are more obscure are more interesting in some ways,” he said. “They never got the fame some other people got, but they may have done just as much or maybe more.”

Blome is a four-time Fulbright scholar and last year took a trip to Ghana, where he taught students how to pour bronze.

His next venture involves a 5,000-square-foot historic home in Spain, which will be the home of his artist residency program. The home is currently being renovated and restored, and Blome hopes to have it ready to take in artists next year, he said.

“That is my big project,” he said.

An artist residency program is a way for artists to work and live in a space for an extended period of time. Blome plans on housing six artists at a time over three sessions each year, he said.

“I want to have a residency to serve other artists, and I want to be in charge of it,” Blome said. “And I want it to have it be my vision of what that would be instead of visiting someone else’s idea of what that would be.”