Norman Borlaug: Journey to Statuary Hall

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[Norman Borlaug] And I am not one to sit idly by and see man breed himself into a corner by increasing his numbers faster that food production is being increased. And if I have anything to contribute to this world, when I know that our scientific facts are right and we have materials that can be brought together in a meaningful production program, I am going to play that card and play it hard.

(Dramatic music)

(A man in an art studio sculpts a bushel of wheat.)

(Three workers wearing protective suits made of shiny silver material, helmets and face shields place a metal rod into a crucible glowing bright orange. Beside them, numerous molds resembling hanging shapes, are organized in a metal rack.)

(A person uses a flame torch on a bronze statue in an outdoor workshop.)

(Outside the United States Capitol a crane lifts a large wooden crate.)

(Inside the Statuary Hall, life-size statues line the walls and people stand near two large wooden crates.)

[Ben Victor] I didn't really become truly inspired until I started reading about Dr. Borlaug's life and who he was and why he was going to be inducted into Statuary Hall.

[Amb. Ken Quinn, Chairman, World Food Prize] Just think, all these hundreds of millions of people who suddenly had enough food to keep them alive, to avert famine and starvation and to have been at the forefront of the greatest period of food production and hunger reduction in the history of the world.

[Sec. Tom Vilsack, U.S. Department of Agriculture] And he was an Iowan and a great ambassador for the state of Iowa. There was something about him that was very, very typical of Iowa and that is his humility, the fact that he received all of these great honors, really never changed him as a person. He remained focused, he remained disciplined, he remained concerned about others.  

(A man standing at a podium speaks to a group of people seated in the capitol rotunda.)

[Gov. Terry Branstad] Norman Borlaug has brought together the leaders of this country, democrat and republican.

[Speaker John Boehner] Every once in a while, someone comes along who truly changes everything, who fashions the ordinary into the exceptional. In Iowa, there was such a man.

[Quinn] You know, the Congressional Gold Medal, it's a precious award, so hard to get. The Presidential Medal of Freedom, Nobel Peace Prize. There's only 100 statues in the U.S. Capitol.

(Dramatic music)

(Text on screen: Mexico 1969)

[Borlaug] I grew up on the land on a small farm in northeast Iowa. This farm was composed of only 50 acres, only half of which was cultivated land. But life was not always easy.

(Text on screen: Aberdeen, South Dakota, July 2013)

(The exterior of Lincoln Hall, a brick building with large, white columns at the entrance. A sign nearby reads "Benjamin Victor Artist In Residence Sculpture Studio."

[Victor] I was doing a lot of artwork, you know, I just didn't really know I would go into it as a profession. But I didn't think it was really practical to go into art for a living.

(Victor opens a microwave splattered with clay and pulls out a bowl liquid clay.)

Oh yeah, that's hot.

[Victor] I remember my dad telling me, just do what you love and you'll be a success even if you never make a dime at it. And so that kind of gave me the confidence to actually take up art.

[Ben Victor, Artist/Sculptor] I want to flatter the good characteristics of Norman Borlaug, obviously I want him to be heroic because he was heroic and he is heroic to all the people that he helped. But at the same time, you have to have that human side in the face, in the pose, to make them feel like they could walk off that pedestal. For me anyway, that's my style, that is what captures me in art when I view other artists' work. Like if it looks like it could just step out of that painting or step off of that pedestal or it pulls me into it then it feels like they're alive, they're real and I can relate. And that is where the power, to me, is in art when you can, the individual relates to the artwork. When I walk up to the piece I feel like I'm pulled in to the time when he was alive, when he was working in Mexico in the wheat field and he's writing in his notebook and he just took a glance up and realized that I'm there and he's still looking out and maybe it's a sunny morning or something and he is writing in there and I walk up to him, he looks up at me and gives that little bit of a smile. I mean, that's the moment I want it to take the viewer into where they feel like they know this man that is a Nobel Prize winner.

I didn't know if since it was in Statuary Hall if the committee was going to want him in like a business suit, like he was at the Nobel Prize, or what they would want to see him as. But I went with this clothing out in the field, he's actually in the work, doing the work that he was later renowned for, but that was his real passion. And the committee felt the same way, which I was really happy about.

(Borlaug speaks to a small group of farmers out in a field.)

[Borlaug] Remember to select for things that you need in your own country back home, that fit your own situation. Those of you from India and Pakistan, part of your wheat is grown under irrigation, be sure you're selecting the short, dwarf plants. These are a plant that's too tall for irrigated conditions of India and Pakistan, but under the dry or semi-dry conditions of Afghanistan it's probably what you want.

(A black-and-white photo depicts a man in profile view wearing a woven straw hat and a light-colored collared shirt. His gaze is focused intently to the right, with a background of blurred fields suggesting an agricultural setting.)

[Victor] I used the photo of him in this pose, the famous photo, and then just basically judged off of that comparatively to his height and figured it out pretty closely.

It's funny because the little things like shoelaces, people really like that, and buttons and detail. Each part of the wheat takes a long time and I didn't know that going into this. This piece actually took me a lot longer than I thought it would. The little seeds on the wheat take a long time. And I tried to get like some seeds from the store that would work but I don't think, I think I'm going to have to do them by hand. I had to do them by hand on the other two sizes just to get them the right size and it's taking a long — I mean, it's not really hard work but it's just time consuming.

My first designs did have the wheat or seed or both in them. But to show the wheat blowing behind him, I think that's where the design really started to come together so that he was there in the field working and he was in a pose that wasn't totally static, he felt like he could move at any second or look up, and then you've got this wheat blowing behind him. And how do you match that with the gesture of the figure? And so that's where it started to come in where I tried to match the lines along the clothing, along his shirt and pants, and follow the line of the wheat. So all those lines bring you just dynamically across the piece and you look into those other icons, like the notebook and the fact that he's writing and the intensity of his eyes. And so that's kind of how I fell into the design we have now.

(Ben Victor stands in a hallway talking with several people.)

Ambassador Quinn knows this because we actually did a survey of the three patinas we had with his office. You're going to find, like don't be afraid if you like something to say I like it. There's a variety in here and if somebody else doesn't like it, it's okay, because I'll tell you what, you're going to find that with color there are as many opinions as there are people as far as sculptures.

[Quinn] We had three, three and three and it broke down virtually evenly, split even to all three different patinas.

[Victor] So, you know, we all have our preferences —

[Quinn] So all those who disagreed with me no longer work there.

(Laughter)

[Teri Goodmann, Borlaug Statue Committee] All of the patinas are so dark that I really feel as though the character of the sculpture just disappears.

[Victor] Especially in the room with all that —

[Goodmann] Oh my, and it's not that bright in Statuary Hall.

[Victor] We have the stone colors right behind you and I'll show you some samples of Iowa stone.

[Quinn] This is all Iowa Anamosa limestone.

[Victor] This is Indiana, this is Indiana limestone, that's in a lot of the bases. This is in a lot of the bases in Statuary Hall.

[Goodmann] Right but we're from Iowa.

[Victor] I know, this is on your Capitol actually. You've got Indiana on your Iowa Capitol.

I'm not making these things up, like when I find an expression I like it's because I've seen it in him, it's not just something I think, well, I think he should be squinting a little, I'm going to do that. It's not random like that. Here's one where he's writing, there is no smile there. I mean, the brow is where it is, those eyes, I mean, he is in work, he is in work mode.

[Victor] I don't think he'd be the most critical. I think he would say, whatever you do is gong to be fine. I think it's the people that know him that really are passionate and say, I want something that represents this man in the best possible way. Those people are the ones that really have a lot of input along the way because they just, they just have that same fire that you have as the artist, they want the best.

(Black and white footage of mid-century style cars driving on a highway.)

[Borlaug] Every day as I drive to our experimental station in Toluca Valley, where we are making really great progress in solving the world food problems, I drive past this place. This is the chemical factory that produces the raw materials for the pill. You see, there are two sides to this complex human problem, the one of food production and the one of population growth. To give attention to one alone is not enough. Both must be considered and brought into balance, one with the other, if there is to be a better life for all of the people of the world.

(Text on screen: Aberdeen, South Dakota, October 2013)

(A rectangular building resembling a large garage stands in a rural landscape. Through a window a man is seen using a brush on a sculpture of a man.)

[Ochs] So even if I didn't split it they would still cut it before they cast it in bronze, so we're just better off just splitting the mold.

(Two men remove the portion of sculpted wheat from the body of the statue.)

(Ochs places playing cards between the top and bottom sections of sculpted wheat.)

The only reason we use, I used cards, different mold makers do different things, plastic coated on both sides so my rubber don't stick to it. [Victor]

(Ochs pours a yellow liquid into a bowl of clear liquid, then mixes it.)

[Victor] It's looking good. We got everything sectioned off yesterday and I helped with that and now Dan has got it under control with the rubber and he'll start the plaster mother molds soon.

(Ochs covers the statue with the rubber mixture using a paint brush.)

It's exciting and it's good to see that phase, you know, going well because that's kind of nerve-racking. It is always nerve-racking.

(Ochs blows on the face of the statue.)

[Ochs] Every piece has a different challenge to them. I mean, if I were to say anything about this it's going to be that patch of wheat that is proving to be difficult and it's just because there's so many undercuts. A mold maker, well, any bronze foundry just doesn't like undercuts. The less undercuts we have the much better it is.

(Text on screen: Oslo, Norway, 1970)

[Woman] I call upon you, Norman Ernest Borlaug, to come to the rostrum and receive the diploma and the gold medal of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1970.

(Applause and trumpets play.)

[Borlaug] Obviously I am personally honored beyond all dreams by this election. But the obligations imposed by the honors are far greater than the honor itself. I am acutely conscious of the fact that I am but one member of that vast army of hunger fighters and so I want to share not only the present honors but also the future obligations with all my companions in arms, for the Green Revolution has not yet been won.

(Text on screen: Berkeley, California, January 2014)

[Victor] This whole bronze process, which took about well four months now, three or four months, and so in that process goes through all these steps and all these hands and artisans that are experts in their field and then when they finish out the piece and you get it exactly how you want it then it has to be taken to the site and based as well. So it's a lot of process involved and I think most people don't realize what goes into just creating one single statue.

(A person uses a flame torch on a bronze statue in an outdoor workshop.)

(A man adjusts the bronzed statue with a wrench.)

[Victor] You know, not such a tight kink, more smooth like this, the curve. On both of these just a little less kink in it. And it's irregular so it's not too big a deal, he doesn't have to be, you know, I'm not going to come and pick at you too bad, don't worry. Just get it just so it matches, doesn't hit over hard. Not so sharp.

[Victor] I had a mold maker come up from Loveland, Dan Ochs, and made the molds right in my shop. Then we loaded up the molds, crated the up and shipped the crates to the foundry here in Berkeley where they poured the waxes and chased the waxes and then sent them through the lost-wax casting process, ceramic shell and burning out the wax and then refilling those ceramic shells with molten bronze and then cracking off the ceramic shell and having the bronzed finished piece welded together, chased and then, of course, at the stage we're at now with the patina, the coloration. And so each step takes experts in that field and so the foundry has workers that work just in that area and they are particularly skilled in that area and they'll manage that little portion of the process and at the end you have a great bronze piece hopefully.

(A woman uses a flame torch on a bronze statue in an outdoor workshop.)

[Victor] So the patina really is just oxidization of the metal with different chemicals.

[Aiya Jordan-Kawaski, Patina Artist] Yeah, this is a classic, like some people call it western or French brown or just classic in general and that is like a — it's liver ferric is what we usually call it. We use sulfurated potash or live of sulfur as like a base coat and spray down the whole sculpture and make it pretty dark. And then you come back in and scrub everything off and then have a little bit of the darks down in the low points and then you spray ferric nitrate until you get like kind of the appropriate brown color. It can go anywhere from kind of gold to a pretty dark almost black-brown.

[Victor] So when you've got liver of sulfur and ferric nitrate sprayed in heat — heated on this piece, it really oxidizes that metal and makes it look rich and antique and beautiful for that setting.

[Aiya] Like the wheat and the figure are quite, like they're pretty different textures and they're also really different thicknesses and so getting those to kind of match and work together was a little bit of a challenge. And then you'll notice there's like pockets and things like that and as you heat in certain areas one area will get way hotter than the rest of it. So you just kind of have to figure out the metal and each piece is totally different.

[Victor] Like a French brown is one of the simpler patinas, the one we're doing, and you go to do it and it gets hot in a certain area because the metal is thicker there or it's a solid piece of metal like the book or some of the wheat is solid. And so it's hard to maintain the perfect amount of heat. And then the hollow or thinner areas, you know, heating up quick but losing heat faster. I mean, it's really weird. And so your chemical will go on different in different places and you end up with this spotty, uneven patina that is not quite what you wanted. And so until you do that you don't realize how tricky that is.

[Victor] Yeah, maybe we can even out some of the shadow areas. I just don't want too much of the two-tone, like if we can — the more even of that dark brown that they want, the better.

[Victor] Because you've got that gap to merge. Like, the Capitol is talking to you, we want this, this is the way it's going to work and it is also your baby, your piece that you have worked on and you're thinking as an artist, am I happy? I've got to make sure I'm — and so you're balancing those two, like working within their parameters to make something that at the end of the day you're proud of as the artist, you're proud that you got to do this and you think, I hope and think it's my best work. And so that is kind of where you're at. It's a little bit scary.

(A semi-truck with a short trailer marked "Ruan" pulls up in front of the U.S. Capitol.)

[Mark Howard, Driver, Ruan Transportation] It's quite the adventure. It started out, we left Des Moines with the truck that's behind us, drove up to just north of Aberdeen, South Dakota and picked up the statue and then we traveled across to Washington, D.C. to deliver it. Just under 2,500 miles from the time — from Des Moines up to South Dakota and to here. Absolutely not my normal task at all.

[Lori Howard] We tease and say that we bonded with Mr. Borlaug. But you think about the differences that he made for our country and for other countries and what he contributed, he was very knowledgeable and really quite the man, I just can't describe the honor that it is to be part of it.

(Benjamin Victor shakes hands with a group of workers outside the U.S. Capitol.)

(A large wooden crate is removed from the truck.)

[Vilsack] I think it is important for us to periodically modernize the message of Statuary Hall. It was no single person in dedicated agriculture in all of those statues, now there will be.

[Quinn] Friday night, you know, the cranes come, the box is there, they'll carry it up to the second level of the Capitol sliding it into Statuary Hall. Governor Kirkwood's moving down there. This great adventurer, this great odyssey finally is there.

[Victor] I think he stands out but I think he matches the surroundings really well because, you know, the patina is very traditional and my style of work is classical, you know, it's realistic, figurative work, which fit right in with the 19th century with the clothing and the detail. It's right in this time period where a lot of these pieces, when a lot of these pieces were created. But looking at it in the room I think he definitely stands out and I think a lot of it has to do with the motion in the wind and the wheat and the pose itself, the way he is kind of pulling towards the viewer.

(The statue of Norman Borlaug is gently raised onto the platform with a chain pulley system.)

[Quinn] I'm sitting here and my back hurt and then all of a sudden I saw the two pieces together in this setting and there it was, all of the dream, all of the things we thought about back when just getting started and I just felt this rush, this thrill came over me that was — the closest thing I can think of is like when a child was born and that here's something new and I just, you know, hard to find the right words.

[Victor] Looking at it, it's just so fulfilling to see him in here in Statuary Hall, in his place where he should be. I mean, it's just amazing.

(Ambassador Quinn addresses an assembly of people gathered in Statuary Hall.)

[Quinn] He was the most humble, hardworking and inspirational person I ever met. And he stood in this spot on July 17, 2007 after he got the Congressional Gold Medal, he stood there and that is where the idea of the statue, when it was born.

(Text on screen: Washington, D. C., July 17, 2007)

[George W. Bush] The most fitting tribute we can offer this good man is to renew ourselves to his life's work and lead a second Green Revolution that feeds the world and today we'll make a place to do so. Dr. Borlaug, I thank you for your vision and dedication. I thank you for leading a life of great purpose and achievement. I thank you for proving to Americans that what we learned as children is still true, that one human being can change the world.

[Borlaug] For hunger and poverty and misery, are very fertile soils into which to plant all kinds of ismos including terrorismo. I thank you very much for this award that you have all given and especially in that critical period of the '60s when the world said nothing can be done. Look what happened. Thank you.

(Applause)

[Quinn] After Dr. Borlaug had received the award and we hosted this ceremony in his honor, caterers set it up in Statuary Hall, by chance, right in front of the Iowa statue, right in front of Governor Kirkwood's statue saying, oh there's Iowa statues? And I turned to members of the congressional delegation and said, "Norm Borlaug should have a statue in here someday." That's where it got started.

(Text on screen: Washington, D.C., March 2014)

[Simon Estes, International Opera Singer] ♪ God Bless America, land that I love. ♪
♪ Stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above. ♪
♪ From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans, white with foam. ♪
♪ God Bless America, my home sweet home. ♪

(Applause)

[Vilsack] I think if Norm were here today, he would want someone else to be acknowledged as well, because Norm didn't do this by himself. As great as he was, as visionary as he was, he needed partners and those partners were the farmers of the United States and of other countries.

[Rep. John Boehner, Speaker of the House] Every once in a while someone comes along who truly changes everything, who fashions the ordinary into the exceptional, who fills a hole that no one believed could be filled, who makes us raise our eyes from the problems of the moment to look around the world. In Iowa, there was such a man.

[Gov. Terry Branstad, R—Iowa] Norman Borlaug has brought together the leaders of this country, Democrat and Republican, working together to recognize and honor a great man that made a real difference.

[Amb. Ken Quinn, Chairman, World Food Prize] Confronting hunger can bring people together across even the greatest gaps and politics, ethnicity, religion, diplomacy and that is what Norm represented.

[Rep. Bruce Braley, D—Iowa] As Norman himself would remind us, our reward for our labors is not what we take from this planet, it's what we give back.

[Rep. Tom Latham, R—Iowa] A researcher came to him in his last few hours and said that he had a breakthrough and the thing that Norman said, his last words were, "Get it to the farmers."

[Sen. Tom Harkin, D—Iowa] His work was at the forefront of a 50 year period that has been described as the single greatest period of food production and hunger reduction in all of human history. Not bad for a farm boy from Cresco, Iowa.

[Sen. Charles Grassley, R—Iowa] Now his legacy and pioneering work will be on display to educate and inspire millions of people who come here to visit the United States Capitol.

[Emcee] Ladies and gentlemen, the statue of Dr. Norman E. Borlaug.

[Vilsack] Well, I hope that they go and they research the life of Norman Borlaug, that they learn about how it is that this man, this humble man from the state of Iowa, in fact, saved hundreds of millions of lives. And from that I hope that they'll be inspired to look at science and the power of science to change lives in a positive way.

[Quinn] From the Congressional Gold Medal to the statue, these steps along the way of making Dr. Borlaug the iconic figure he deserves to be.

[Victor] Our U.S. Capitol is the number one spot, you know, I mean, this is the place in the nation, you couldn't have a better placement and you couldn't have a more important placement, but you couldn't have a more deserving individual either. So Norman Borlaug, here you are in your spot in Statuary Hall.

(Text on screen:

Videographers: John Torpy, Rick Fuller, Andrew Batt, Phil Blobaum, Abbie Hamilton
Audio: Jim Leasure
Editing & Color Correction: Chad Aubrey
Production Assistance: Travis Graven, Tiffany Cleghorn, Ben Victor
Manager of Local Programming: Wayne Bruns
Production Coordinator: Laura Shannon
Director of Programming & Production: Justin Beaupre
Director of Communications: Kristen Gray
Additional Footage: "Freedom From Famine—The Norman Borlaug Story"
Executive Producer: Andrew Batt

Copyright 2014
Iowa Public Television)

[Announcer] Funding for this program was provided by Friends of Iowa Public Television, the Iowa Public Television Foundation and generations of families and friends who feel passionate about Iowa Public Television programs.