The gravity of The Gathering

To make her sculpture, The Gathering, look like the excavated skeleton of a prehistoric creature, artist Nancy Lovendahl started with 40 tons of Cottonwood limestone.

But it isn’t the sculpture’s mass that gives it the kind of gravity that draws people in. That comes from the vision that started it all.

After Jim and Sue Oates bought their home on Ohio Creek in 2001, they spent several years sitting beside the creek around an old metal table. “Think second-hand French bistro,” Sue said. Eventually, they started to envision something more inviting and reached out to Lovendahl, based in the Roaring Fork Valley, to help them develop their idea.

“We reflected on their collection of art, which reflected their interest in education, their interest in this region, the four corners, and history’s ability to inform the future,” Lovendahl said. “We put all of that together in this kind of cosmic soup, and we came up with a question: Who has been here before us?”

From that question came The Gathering, a 30-foot-long column of limestone vertebrae in various states of decay, surrounded by the broken ribs of a “mythical beast” conjured from Lovendahl’s imagination. And each vertebra was sculpted to match the curvature of Sue’s back, so it would accept a seated person perfectly. 

For 14 years, The Gathering sat behind the Oateses’ home, where friends and family sat on its carved limestone vertebrae and found a comfortable place to visit beside the water.

“We had wonderful times together,” Sue said at a dedication of The Gathering on Thursday, October 22. “And I realize that was really what Jim was hoping for.”

Now, recently installed on Western Colorado University’s campus, The Gathering has a new community to invite in.

After Jim died in late 2021 and Sue sold their home, the Oates family offered the piece to Western and asked Christopher Klein Construction to install it in the northeast corner of the quad between Quigley and Kelley halls.   

For Western’s president, Brad Baca, The Gathering’s origin makes it perfectly suited to its new home.

“Western is a place where people gather,” Baca said. “We gather to learn. We gather to question. We gather to create. We gather to discover. We gather to build community. And this sculpture now joins us as a visible reminder of that mission.”

Bringing the piece also adds another chapter to the Oateses’ longtime support for art at Western. Jim commissioned the Bull and Bear sculpture for the front of the Borick Business Building, believing a beautiful building needed art. And The Gathering joins another Lovendahl work at Western, The Power of Limits, which stands on the opposite side of Quigley Hall.

But Sue’s hope for The Gathering is that it will create a place at Western for people to come together, just as it did at their home on Ohio Creek.

“So my hope today is that you’ll visit The Gathering … try out some of the seats and find the one that fits you perfectly,” Sue said. “Then bring a friend and have a good time. That is the ‘why’ behind The Gathering.”

Seth Mensing is the media and communications manager at Western Colorado University.