SAN LUIS
THERE are few, if any photographs of Marcelino Baca, a 19th-century fur trader, and that was the dilemma facing sculptor Huberto Maestas when he was commissioned to create a piece on Baca for the new Pueblo Walk of Legends display.
He scoured the internet, read up on Baca and his arrival in Pueblo from Taos, but photographs of the mountain man were scant. In an era when photography hadn’t yet become a technology used by the masses, the only image of Baca that Maestas found was a grainy photo of the fur trader that his daughter once possessed.
Baca was considered one of the best mountain trappers of his day, and so Maestas went on a search for his own mountain man to use as a model. Above timberline in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains he met the person he would initially use to begin the project.
“He definitely was the real thing,” the artist chuckles, recalling his trip up the Sangres and his discovery of the modern mountain man.
When the Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority hosts a dedication ceremony in May for three sculptures commissioned by the LaVert W. Hoag Foundation to commemorate its Walk of Legends, it is the inspiration Maestas discovered along his own journey of creating Marcelino Baca that will be on display.
From left: The original model for Huberto Maestas’ sculpture of legendary mountain trapper Marcelino Baca, and the first proposal for the work. Pueblo’s Walk of Legends, which connects to the El Pueblo History Museum, will feature the final piece. Below: Maestas enjoys the resemblance as he works on the sculpture’s head back in November 2021 (Ryan Michelle Scavo photo).
From left: The original model for Huberto Maestas’ sculpture of legendary mountain trapper Marcelino Baca, and the first proposal for the work. Pueblo’s Walk of Legends, which connects to the El Pueblo History Museum, will feature the final piece. Below: Maestas enjoys the resemblance as he works on the sculpture’s head back in November 2021 (Ryan Michelle Scavo photo).
AND if there is any resemblance in the Baca piece to the artist himself, well, there’s a story for that too.
In addition to Baca, the Pueblo Walk of Legends features Teresita Sandoval, also born in Taos and considered one of the first women of European descent to live in Colorado; and Charles Autobee, a frontiersman who originated out of St. Louis and came into Taos in the 1830s before heading north through the San Luis Valley into Pueblo.
“Considered the most enduring personalities of their time, these trailblazers were instrumental in the establishment of settlements in Pueblo and surrounding areas who will now forever be commemorated at the Walk of Legends,” reads the invitation to the May 6 dedication ceremony.
The walkway itself connects to the El Pueblo History Museum, which marks the original border between the United States and Mexico. For Maestas, it’s the latest public display of his artwork. While he isn’t quite sure of the exact numbers, he knows there are at least 50 major cities and 14 countries where his art resides.
“I’m working on a ton of projects all at once,” he says in describing his day and the continuous nature of his work and the casting of bronze sculptures, his own and others. He currently is assisting the estate of the late R.C. Gorman by casting a variety of pieces from the Native American artist that will end up in collectors’ hands.
He’s also remodeling his own gallery off the main drag in the town of San Luis to market his art and that of others in the area, including neighboring New Mexico.
“The world of selling art has changed, but people who buy high-end art still go to the galleries,” he says.
After he found his mountain man for the Baca piece, he made an initial model and showed it to the Walk of Legends organizers. Their feedback? The Baca he depicted looked too heroic, needed a fur trapper’s hat – and maybe should look a bit more like him.
So he went out and purchased a beaver hat to get the headwear correct, recast Baca so that the mountain man is reaching over in his pose, holding a gun in one hand and a beaver trap in the other, and resculpted the face to resemble himself a bit more.
“So Marcelino Baca forever in history will look like me,” he laughs.
And he goes back to work.