South Texas sculptor basks in limelight

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Prominent among the collection at the Texas State Archive are photographs from the dedication ceremonies for statues and monuments built on the Capitol grounds.

Among them are tributes to volunteer firefighters, the Heroes of the Alamo, Terry’s Texas Rangers and Confederate veterans.

There’s even a statue of a cowboy there. That cowboy piece, though, would never have appeared were it not for the legions of Tejano vaqueros who roped and rode and rounded up longhorn cattle hundreds of years before Anglo cowboys started streaming into Texas.

Now, the history in the state archive will record that on Thursday, March 29, 2012, another dedication ceremony welcomed to the front lawn of the Capitol, a brand new monument, this one to the region’s early Spanish settlers and the generations of descendants they produced.

The man that created the 12-piece sculpture is himself a South Texas horseman. He is also a master sculptor. As hundreds of proud Tejanos arrived to watch Armando Hinojosa’s work unveiled, he stood nervously nearby.

“I'm glad the people showed up,” he said, “and I hope when we unveil, they like it. If not, I'm going to hit the dirt and go someplace else,” he laughed.

Hinojosa first learned he had been selected as the sculptor 11 years ago, but there were delays related to fundraising and to a disagreement about where the monument would be placed. State officials suggested a spot behind the Capitol. Hispanic leaders insisted on the front lawn.

“To me at one point,” Hinojosa said, “when they were having problems, I said, 'I don't care; I just want to do the sculpture; just put it wherever they want.'

“’No, we don't want it; we want it in our own place where it's supposed to be.’”

As the years rolled by, the artist got increasingly anxious.

“I was telling them, 'We've got to get it started; we got to get it started,’” he recalled. “At that time I didn't have white hair and now I got white hair.”

There was, though, another source of stress: Once a series of bronze sculptures is in place, fixing mistakes is virtually impossible. Hinojosa had to get it right.

With a mounted vaquero, two longhorns, a family, a conquistador, a goat and a sheep to fashion, there was plenty of room for screw-ups.

“I worked with historians,” he said. “Historians that told me what kind of clothing to use, to put on the guy, because I have to get everything historically correct.”

“I had the spurs, the swords. He's got a musket pistol but inside (the holster). You don't see the actual flint lock, but you can see the handle.

“The horse has to be correct also. The horse is a Mustang. The Indians used to call it the pony because it was very short. Most horses now are quarter horses used for cutting and working cattle. They're very stock. Their legs go up either side of the body.

“In a Mustang, the legs start out like a 'V.' It opens up like that and they are very narrow-chested.

“They also have a tail that hangs further down the body because they're missing one vertebra from the backbone.”

But if Hinojosa is tightly wound about the work itself, he is far more relaxed when it comes to the subject matter.

“There were a lot of people that were here from other countries,” he noted. “They were here because they were adventurers and they came here and they wanted to be a part.

“They're Tejanos; it's for everybody. I don't know; to me, a Tejano is a person that lives in Texas and in the 1800s and the 1700s, they were all called Tejanos. They didn't know; they didn't look at the color of the skin; they were Tejanos.

“So it's not only for Hispanics or Mexican-Americans or whatever.”

Indeed, Hinojosa suggests that perhaps it’s time for another monument, one to honor native people who were already here long before the Tejanos arrived.

“You know,” he offered, “I say if I wasn't a Hispanic, I would have loved to been an American Indian. I don't know where I would be right now, but really, to me, those are the people of the land.”

As he spoke, scores of children passed by, on their way to the field trip of their dreams.

“I did this for all the Tejanos who've been here for the last 500 years,” the sculptor said, “but this is also for all the kids of the future.”