PORT ANGELES – Torment, then peace.
Those two human elements confront the viewer in the latest piece of public art erected in downtown Port Angeles.
It’s a 9-foot monument, a kind of tower of volcanic lava, topped with a serene face that looks up from Railroad Avenue and Laurel Street toward the mountains.
It’s a creation artist Bob Stokes had little control over, he said.
“Robert” the sculpture evokes Robert Jones, a Port Angeles man who, said his stepmother Jeanne Couillard Jones, was a tortured soul who finally got free of his demons.
Jeanne and Robert’s father, Jim Jones, commissioned the sculpture and donated it to the city of Port Angeles.
“Robert” is the 46th piece in downtown’s outdoor sculpture gallery.
“We were rewriting our will . . . and we wanted to leave stuff to our children,” Jeanne began in an interview at her workshop, the former Fiber Arts Gallery on Front Street in Port Angeles
“We also wanted to remember Rob,” their son who is deceased.
The Joneses might have left a bequest to an arts or other civic organization, but they decided against that.
“We thought, ‘Why wait until we’re dead? Why not enjoy it while we’re alive?'” Jeanne said.
She said she knew that Stokes was the man who could create a piece that would both honor their son and enrich downtown’s art collection.
