GRANTS, N.M. – Strange and beautiful are words that might be applied to a statue near the covered seating area at the duck pond. A man jutting forth from what could be a giant railroad spike holds one enormous drill bit-like arm into the sky releasing a crow. His rusted chest, arms, and bearded face add a timeless patina to the figure that is as mysterious as the lack of a paper trail that could tell us about its origins.
Though it occupies public property, the Grants City Clerk’s office had no record of the statue, neither did the Cibola County Historical Society or the Cibola Arts Council. Everywhere the Cibola Citizen turned was a deadend. At the base of the monument is a memorial to Wm. P. Sears (1940-1996) – the engraving reads: “It’s A Great Day To Be A Crow.” A tip from NMSU-Grants Librarian Nathan Franklin led the Citizen back to the Arts Council. According to a volunteer at the Cibola Arts Council, who happened to be in during a last-shot chance to locate sculptor Jan Pearson, “Mrs. Sears commissioned the statue to honor her late husband who was a lover of crows.” It was explained that the widower had since passed.
A deeper online dive revealed an obituary for Jan Pearson of Aztec, New Mexico. In this obituary, the Citizen learned that the artist had died in 2011 at the age of 64. A handful of obituary comments led the Citizen down another path. Here the newspaper found Yolanda, a former girlfriend, who said her grandfather had given Pearson a braided leather rope and that he was a “starving artist and a real interesting guy who embraced many Native American beliefs.” Apparently, Jan was also a selftaught artist.
The Citizen reached out to J. Phillips who had also left a comment in the memory book attached to the obituary. According to Mr. Phillips, he and Jan had worked together in the eighties in Tucson at a place called Vision Quest. “It was a rehab center for the worst of the worst of kids from California gangs. Jan lived in a silo next to the main office. He was like the staff artist. He did silver work, leather work, everything. He designed the Vision Quest logo.” Phillips described Jan as a loner, a “pretty private kinda guy living out of his van until Vision Quest gave him a space to be and a little stability.” His metal work influenced Mr. Phillips so much that he now operates his own fabrication shop.
Jan Pearson is featured in a 1998 video that Mr. Phillips recently shared on YouTube. Jan is interviewed by Peggy Rutledge and talks about his evolution through leatherwork, silversmithing, goldsmithing, lapidary, etc. She asks about his muse, and he said: “I become committed to a vision. I don’t always know how it’s going to come together. In many cases, my work is a reflection of the clients who hire me to do the work. If you can feel free to express what’s in you, then I can pick that information up and extrapolate the info that I need and feed back to you something that I think will please you.”
Walk around the duck pond park until you come to the protected tables and benches, and you will see the enigmatic rusted man, forever exposed to the elements, erupting from a spike with an outstretched arm, releasing a crow.
In the 1998 video, the late Mr. Pearson said: “If you can dream it, I can do it.” And so, he did.