"Shiva"

When we started collecting, we wanted the work to showcase the depth of sculptural talent in the Pacific Northwest. We built a list of favorites with ties to Oregon. Born here, based here, or represented in public work across the state, and one name rose straight to the top: Lee Kelly.

Kelly was one of the most prolific and respected sculptors in Oregon's history, with work in museums and on campuses across the world. We heard he lived on a property in Oregon City called Leland Iron Works, grounds full of his sculpture, where Portland's Elizabeth Leach Gallery occasionally staged exhibitions. We'll get out there to meet him, we told ourselves.

We were too slow. He passed in the spring of 2022 before we made the trip. But the property stayed in his family's care, and the Leach gallery kept holding shows there.

Kelly worked mainly in two steels: corten, with its signature red rust patina, and stainless, which shines. We wanted a piece but couldn't decide which direction to go. Both were beautiful in their own way. We considered Tools of the Butter Trade, a matched pair he'd made in each material. But we kept circling back to one piece: Shiva, the last work of his life. His grandson Carter finished it after Lee passed, adding Lee's birth year to the base beside the year it was made.

We asked about buying it. Not for sale, we were told. Understandable, given it was his final piece. So we made one gentle case: what we were building in Eugene, wanting to site it alongside other world-class work, open to the public eventually, part of a permanent collection for years to come. It worked. We acquired Shiva.

We went back to Leland Iron Works in 2024 to collect it, and Carter came along to help unload it and think through siting. Kelly's technique on stainless catches the sun in a way that's hard to describe, so we decided it needed to be viewed from the south, sun at your back. The front yard was the obvious spot. The only place on the property where we'd site just a single piece, since the rest of the collection is meant to be discovered on foot. Was this the one to greet us at the front door every day? Obviously. Lee Kelly was an Oregon icon, and there's no better beacon for the collection than his final work, front and center.

Try to see it at high noon on a warm summer day, with the sun at your back.