Giving up Five Thousand Dollars a Year to Become a Sculptor
“MY life?” queried F. Wellington Ruckstuhl, one of the foremost sculptors of America, as we sat in his studio looking up at his huge figure of “Force.” “When did I begin to sculpture? As a child I was forever whittling, but I did not have dreams then of becoming a sculptor. It was not till I was thirty-two years of age. And love,—disappointment in my first love played a prominent part.”
“But as a boy, Mr. Ruckstuhl?”
“I was a poet. Every sculptor or artist is necessarily a poet. I was always reaching out and seeking the beautiful. My father was a foreman in a St. Louis machine shop. He came to this country in a sailing ship from Alsace, by way of the Gulf to St. Louis, when I was but six years old. He was a very pious man and a deacon in a church. One time, Moody and Sankey came to town, and my father made me attend the meetings; I think he hoped that I would become a minister. Between the ages of fourteen and nineteen, I worked in a photographic supply store; wrote one hundred poems, and read incessantly. I enlarged a view of the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square, London, into a ‘plaster sketch,’ ten times as large as the picture, but still I did not know my path. I began the study of philosophy, and kept up my reading for ten years. My friends thought I would become a literary man. I wrote for the papers, and belonged to a prominent literary club. I tried to analyze myself. ‘I am a man,’ I said, ‘but what am I good for? What am I to make of this life?’ I drifted from one position to another. Every one was sorry to part with my services, for I always did my duties as well as they could be done. When I was twenty-five years of age, the girl to whom I was attached was forced by her mother to marry a wealthy man. She died a year afterwards; and I ‘pulled up stakes,’ and started on a hap-hazard, reckless career. I went to Colorado, drifted into Arizona, prospected, mined, and worked on a ranch. I went to California, and at one time thought of shipping for China. My experiences would fill a book. Again I reached St. Louis. For a year, I could not find a thing to do, and became desperate.”
“And you had done nothing at art so far?” I asked.
“At that time, I saw a clay sketch. I said to myself, ‘I can do as well as that,’ and I copied it. My second sketch admitted me to the St. Louis Sketch Club. I told my friends that I would be a sculptor. They laughed and ridiculed me. I had secured a position in a store, and at odd times worked at what I had always loved, but had only half realized it. Notices appeared in the papers about me, for I was popular in the community. I entered the competition for a statue of General Frank R. Blair. I received the first prize, but when the committee discovered that I was only a bill clerk in a store, they argued that I was not competent to carry out the work; although I was given the first prize model and the one hundred and fifty dollars accompanying it.”
“But that inspired you?”
“Yes, but my father and mother put every obstacle in the way possible. I was driven from room to room. I was not even allowed to work in the attic.” Here Mr. Ruckstuhl laughed. “You see what genius has to contend with. I was advanced in position in the store, till I became assistant manager, at two thousand dollars a year. When I told the proprietor that I had decided to be a sculptor, he gazed at me in blank astonishment. ‘A sculptor?’ he queried, incredulously, and made a few very discouraging remarks, emphasized with dashes. ‘Why, young man, are you going to throw up the chance of a lifetime? I will give you five thousand dollars a year, and promote you to be manager if you will remain with me.’
“But I had found my life’s work,” said Mr. Ruckstuhl, turning to me. “I knew it would be a struggle through poverty, till I attained fame. But I was confident in myself, which is half of the battle.”
“And you went abroad?”