SANDERS HAMMERED OUTA LEGACY LARGER THAN LIFE - The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA)

The hammer still rests there, right where Bill Sanders left it -atop a work glove, on the back of an unfinished, life-size scrap-metal sculpture of an Afghan hound, next to an unfinished, life-size scrap-metal sculpture of a llama.

It's the perfect symbol of a Spokane original. The emblem of aman who lived for art, right to the end.

You may not know of Sanders, who died last month at age 76, butyou've almost certainly seen his sculptures. Most notably, theenormous moose and three wolves at the entrance to the airport arehis. He created the commemorative coins for the Centennial Trail.The painted African bronzes - from Masai warriors to lions to hyenas- populating his Mead-area farm were once arrayed in a short-livedElk theme park. His scrap-metal creations have stood outside Area58, the secondhand/art store on North Monroe, and dotted yards andprivate collections all over the place.

Still, Sanders was not well-known here. His passing a month agowas marked only by a small obituary notice. But his life and his art- his stubborn journey, his self-made career, the striking realismof his work, and his devotion to art as nourishment for life -should be the stuff of a larger legacy.

'Art just really was his reason for getting up and going on,'said Leslie Ahrens, his niece. 'His health was so poor at the endand he was in such exquisite pain that he could only be active aboutsix hours a day and he could only work about two of those hours. Heslept day and night.'

Sanders could be irascible and argumentative, and he kept tohimself. Dennis Held, the owner of Area 58, struck up a friendshipwith Sanders late in his life. Like others, Held talks about thecombination of Sanders' gruffness and his good heart. And, ofcourse, his devotion to art - which only deepened after Sanders'heart transplant in the mid-1990s.

'He knew that at any given moment he might not wake up,' Heldsaid. 'He knew that for 10 years.'

Sanders was born in Alfalfa, Ore., and grew up in Cheney andMead. He graduated from Mead High in 1953 and served in the Navybefore marrying and settling in Portland, working in real estate.That marriage and career did not last, and Sanders moved back to thefamily home on North Fairview Road in the 1970s.

At that point, Sanders embarked on a completely new direction. Hebuilt a foundry and began making bronze sculptures. It's unclearwhat led to this radical change - he used to say he was inspired bywelding a gladiator costume for Halloween - but he devoted himselfto it.

'That became his sole thing,' Ahrens said. 'His sole purpose inlife.'

The foundry process is difficult, and the self-taught Sandersseemed to take to it naturally, producing lifelike sculptures rightaway. His early works included Western art pieces such as buffalo,but also figures of Masai people and stories from Greek mythology,like the small sculptures from the mid-1980s in Ahrens' home. Hedepicted creatures from all around the globe, from baboons tocamels, herons to ostriches.

'He started small and then he got bigger and bigger and bigger,'Ahrens said.

In the late 1980s and early '90s, Sanders cast 34 life-sizeAfrican pieces, which he tried to use to populate a theme park inElk. His idea for My African Acre was that people would pay $2 ahead to see the work and learn about Africa. The project never tookhold, and Sanders had the pieces moved back to his farm, where theyremain.

Sanders had heart problems for years, going back to a heartattack in 1991. He had a heart transplant a few years later, whichchanged his life in more ways than one. Beyond the heightenedawareness of his mortality, Sanders had to confront the fact that hecould no longer handle the physical work involved with making hugebronze pieces.

Ahrens said she encouraged him to do more with scrap metal - themedium that came to define his second artistic life. He createdgiant insects, horses and other figures. A draft horse and carriagesits in Ahrens' front yard. A plesiosaur skeleton sits in front ofArea 58 - though the head has been missing recently after somedamage was done to the piece.

'He made what he called Hellenistic art - as faithful arepresentation of the animal, or whatever he was sculpting, aspossible,' Held said.

And yet, he took liberties with that plesiosaur figure -extending the lower jaw - for artistic effect, Held said. 'He keptdeveloping as an artist, even down to his last pieces,' he said.

In an interview with The Spokesman-Review in 2008, Sanders talkedabout art as a human legacy and as a positive force within his ownlife.

'It makes you feel good,' he said. 'I figure art improves yourlife, so I haven't been a total zero. ... You look around at all thecivilizations that have come and gone - the only thing left is theart.'

Sanders died March 12, the day after his 76th birthday. He'dsuffered one health problem after another, exacerbated by his weakheart, and on that day he drove himself to the VA hospital feelingill. He died shortly thereafter.

Now the only thing left is the art - the art and the example.That hammer. That lifetime of work. Banging away instead of givingup.

'This is the last thing he was working on,' Ahrens said, lookingat a photo of the hammer resting on the dog. 'We're not touching it.That's exactly where he laid it last.'

Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@spokesman.com.