My work ranges through a variety of materials, styles, and subject matter.  However, I have given most of my attention to “figurative” sculpture: whimsical creatures, formal portrait busts, and life-size bronze figures for public or private spaces.  

In my public commissions, I serve as the vehicle for the expression of community values, through the creation of a permanent monument. In my ‘personal’ sculptures, I give expression to form and figures which arouse delight. emotional connection, attention to detail, and pleasure in the process of ‘object-making’ are state-of-mind qualities I value as an artist and sculptor. In a word, I love rapport“at-one-ment” (to cop a phrase from D.H.Lawrence), absorption in the work-at-hand, and I hope this rapport is conveyed in my sculpture.

If you are interested in any of the sculptures you see on this website, or are considering a sculpture for your home or garden, please contact me.  I would be happy to work with you.

a 7-minute film by Swinging Gate Productions

A Long Arc Blog

Lawrence Reid Bechtel specializes in portraiture and public sculpture.

Story! I love story. Don’t we all?

For story is the narrative pathway which links together the events of life into a meaningful whole. Naïve? Maybe. But I’ll take my chances and stick with Isamu Noguchi: “man is a myth-maker.”

So when I sculpt, I’m telling a story. Or implying one: all that came before, and that which is yet to be, formed into the “now” of this face, that gesture, these figures. From police officers on their tragic pedestal, to the little cartoons without any pedestal, each, each and all have their implied story.

And in their stories, may we find ours. Let this be my aspiration as a sculptor.

Storyteller