Artist commissioned for statue of Company F soldier
Provided photos: Artist Brian Porter is pictured with Bill Menz, chairman of the Company F Memorial Committee, after the group on Monday officially entered into an agreement to create the statue. The clay model shows how the statue will look.
MEDINA – The Company F Memorial Committee is moving along with its effort to have a 7-foot-high bronze statue erected outside the former Armory in Medina.
That site is now the Orleans County YMCA. But for about 75 years the site trained soldiers for battle. The statue will honor those soldiers and help people appreciate the building’s past in training soldiers to defend the country.
The Company F Memorial Committee worked for several years to raise $65,000 for the statue and also to make improvements to a monument outside the Armory on Pearl Street.
On Monday, the committee signed an agreement with Brian Porter of Lockport to create the statue.
The soldier will resemble a young soldier, someone who looks between 18 and 21. That was typical of Company F. The committee wants the statue to look like a typical soldier from the site when they left the community in October 1940 during World War II.
Porter is an assistant professor of art at Erie Community College. He has created the statue for the Seabees Memorial in North Tonawanda and is currently working with the University of Buffalo to create two statues of graduates to be installed at their North Campus.
This project will be the first where he will incorporate 3-D imaging to assist in creating the molds for the cast bronze statue, said Lynne Menz, a member of the Company F Committee.
Porter is collecting accessories such as the WWI campaign hat, backpack and rifle that were carried the day they left Medina in October 1940.
The 3-D imaging should speed up the process, but Bill Menz said it will still be one to two years before the statue is ready to be installed on a base that was unveiled in 2008.
The memorial fund-raising effort will update some of the plaques for the base. Menz said the committee also wants to add a third flag pole, improve the walkway and replace bushes with flower beds.
For more on the effort, click here.
Committee members include, from left, seated: Bob Weet (Company C Veteran), Artist Brian Porter, Chairman Bill Menz and Lynne Menz. Standing: sons and daughters of Company F veterans: Kathy Iorio, Cathy Fox and Joe Franklin. They are pictured at the VFW Post in Medina, which was formed by Company F soldiers after they returned from World War II.
