Selected Writings

Monument to a Master

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with the sculpture of the great Earle E. Heikka.   Heikka had been renowned around Great Falls, Montana, where he had lived and worked during the 1930s (and among collectors nationwide) for the beauty and realism of his painted clay sculptures. Not often mentioned in reviews of his life and work is the distinct realism of his subject matter, as opposed to some popular modern drama pieces.   Heikka’s attention to detail and the inventive use of materials with which he created both the inner structure of

“I knew I was in trouble,” he said. “It had been in my mother’s storage trunk, where she kept her treasures. So I just kept quiet about it.”   But it would not be long before young Baker would get his comeuppance: “When my mother discovered the ruined sculpture, she went wild,” he said. “It had been a gift from a customer at the café where she had worked as a waitress-a Great Falls artist who killed himself.” Years later Baker finally connected the “artist who killed himself”

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