A sculpture for David

PALMER — Starting Monday afternoon, anyone walking, riding or driving by Academy Charter School on Arctic Avenue in Palmer will notice something different. A large, metal sculpture will adorn the grounds.

Entitled “Eternal Flame”, the approximate 13-foot, two piece work was inspired by Palmer teen David Grunwald, whose body was found near the Butte last November. Wasilla mixed media artist Holly Gittlein was commissioned by David’s parents Ben and Edie Grunwald of Palmer. Their son David, was murdered allegedly by a group of Valley teens last November who now await trial. David attended Academy Charter in seventh and eighth grade.

Gittlein is an accomplished artist with a passion for Alaska’s great outdoors and nature in general. Her media runs the gamut from driftwood to painting to metal, with which she has been most prolific. A good sample of her painting ability can be seen in an approximate 100-foot mural she helped paint along the tunnel beneath the Parks Highway at Wasilla Lake’s Newcomb Park last summer.

“I wanted to do something not only for David’s school,” Edie Grunwald said, “but the community.”

Grunwald said she and Ben had contacted Gittlein to see how she felt about such an undertaking back in February.

“She woke up in Fiji and said this is what she wanted to do,” Grunwald said. “Then we were looking for a place to put it...and I thought ‘yeah’.”

Grunwald said the couple chose Academy Charter just because their son attended the school.

“The school is amazing,” she said. “It got David ready to be successful. When I drive by the school, I get good feelings. I thought they needed something that attracts the eye but also something special.”

Academy principal Barbara Gerard said she was contacted by the Grunwalds about making the school a site for the piece.

“David spent two years here and he made such growth and progress. (The Grunwalds) thought we were a good host. It’s a beautiful sculpture. Now we’ll have gorgeous sculpture outside. It’s a good memory.”

Gerard said a large concrete pad was poured and set last week. Gottlein is expected to assemble the two-piece sculpture this weekend for its official unveiling Monday morning. It will have a permanent home near the school’s front entrance. The unveiling is not a public event but the 244 Academy Charter students, along with staff and administrators will mark the occasion as part of their end-of-the-school-year picnic.

The artist

Gittlein said her career as an artist came as a surprise.

“Like most things in my life the leap from a pure science field to the role of an artist was completely unplanned, a bold intuitive decision that has sculpted my life and experiences into nothing I previously envisioned,” Gittlein said. “I come from a long line of iron workers, farmers, roughnecks and beautiful, hard-working women: a lucky combination. I learned to handle welders, equipment, torches as well as paint, sew and create as a child and I was blessed with a family who believed in everything I did.”

The artist said a love for all things wild and free combined with an addiction for adventure led her to a degree in biology from the University of Northern Colorado and a post graduate diploma in marine studies from the University of the South Pacific in the Fiji Islands. Her curiosity of the “mysterious force of creation” has taken her on an interesting journey across Africa, South and Central America, Asia, Europe and the South Pacific where she continues witnessing life expressed in infinite forms of great beauty and great sadness.

In her travels, Gittein said she had learned to observe rather than to judge what nature has manifested allowing for a deeper, more authentic relationship with the spirit expressed as nature. This powerful position of the unattached observer, she said, is where her art truly comes from. Adding to her repertoire, she continues training in the healing arts studying Chinese medicine, massage, yoga, sound healing, Reiki and Qi Gong. Gittlein feels doing so adds enlightenment and healing energies to each of her pieces.

“I hope the piece brings a little bit of life, and smiles, and special feelings when people see it,” said Grunwald. “There’s been so much support in the community. I think the community needs something.”