From the Arkansas Advocate:
The Arkansas Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission was unable to approve the design for a proposed “monument to the unborn” advocated by abortion opponents to place on Capitol grounds Tuesday after there weren’t enough members present to vote.
The nearly two-hour meeting included presentations from some of the artists behind the proposals, including Lakey Goff of Hot Springs Village, whose proposed “living wall” of plants was the commission’s initial selection in 2023. Republican state officials passed a law, the first of its kind, earlier that year mandating the creation of the monument.
Goff submitted an altered version of the proposal in March after the commission took issue with her plan to copyright her original idea. She spent several minutes of Tuesday’s meeting reading from Psalm 45 and advocating for her proposal, which she expects will cost much less than originally projected.
The other proposed monuments are an enlarged fertilized egg, an image of a horned figure lurking around a woman, an empty tomb with engravings of fetuses on it and a stone and bronze sculpture of baby feet inside a heart.
Goff said she believed each submission “belongs somewhere.”
“I don’t know where, but [they’re] beautiful ideas,” she said. “We’ve had a reset here, and I think it’s a good thing.”
Three other Hot Springs Village residents expressed support for Goff’s design, which includes speakers projecting waterfall sounds, during the meeting’s public comment period.
“I think this vision is from the heart of God,” Debbie McAndrews said. “It was birthed into some of these politicians from the very beginning.”
The Republican sponsors of the law mandating the monument, Sen. Kim Hammer of Benton and Rep. Mary Bentley of Perryville, have expressed support for Goff’s design. In 2015, Hammer sponsored a law mandating a Ten Commandments monument on Capitol grounds. After nearly a decade of litigation, a federal judge ruled in March that the state must take down the monument, but the order is on hold so the state can appeal the ruling.
The “monument to the unborn” would commemorate abortions that Arkansans obtained during the nearly 50 years Roe v. Wade was in effect until its overturn in 2022. Earlier this year, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas called the proposed monument “an offensive and inappropriate use of public space.”
In 2023, a few legislative Republicans voted against the law requiring the construction of the monument, saying they believed it would be a mean-spirited effort and a misguided use of abortion opponents’ money.
The Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission requires at least five of its 10 members for a quorum. The remaining members agreed to hold a special meeting within the next month to vote on a monument proposal.
Besides Goff, some of the other artists who submitted proposals advocated for their work and told the commission they wanted the monument to remain impactful to Capitol visitors for years.
Andrew Wilson Smith of Richmond, Virginia, called the mandate to create the monument “a national statement in the middle of a very large culture war.” Smith is a sculptor who submitted the empty tomb monument idea alongside architect Erik Bootsma. The two submitted a similar idea in 2023.
“For Arkansas to be able to stand behind that statement with a monument that has the gravitas to back it up is going to be a bigger deal than the cost of $1 million dollars,” the idea’s projected price tag, Smith said.
In 2024, the commission accepted Goff’s suggestion to place her proposed living wall in the grassy space behind the Capitol and to the north of the Supreme Court building. Chairman Stephen Bright said Tuesday that the location is unlikely to change even if the commission chooses a different idea.
Goff’s updated proposal for the living wall would be about 10 feet high and 33 feet long and would take up about 660 square feet of space. The anticipated construction cost would be $345,700, about $600,000 less than the original proposal, and maintenance would cost $33,500 per year. The law allows only private funds to be used for the project’s construction and maintenance.
Fundraising for the project has been slow since it began in May 2024. The effort has raised more than $28,000, and $17,276 is currently in the monument’s trust fund after preliminary engineering and plan development expenses, Bright said.
