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The Vogel Family Trust is donating their John Kuchera metal sculptures to the Cowboy Carousel Center. 

They are two 3/4-lifesize sculptures that are welded metal by John Kuchera. The Indian Chief was completed around 2004.

In the mid 1980s, Patty Vogel of Ucross commissioned a horse for her husband Dick’s anniversary present. The horse was Kuchera’s first horse. As he had never made one before, he got a book with the skeleton of a horse and created that interior shape first, and then finished off the rest of the horse. The Horse pastured in the front yard of the Vogel ranch at Ucross for almost 40 years, and when Patty died Dick got the Indian Chief as a memorial to his wife who loved Native American culture.

Of course, they lived side by side for many more years.  When the ranch was sold this summer, the Vogel siblings decided to donate the sculpture to a nonprofit where it would be a part of enriching the community with the works of John Kuchera, and continue on as a tribute and fitting memorial to their parents. Together they will stay on Lobban Avenue with the surrounding arts community.

Kuchera was a coal miner from the Sheridan area who discovered he wanted to do sculpture in 1969 and started a remarkable career in folk art for the rest of his life. Over the over 80 years he lived, he created more than 10,000 sculptures — large and small — showing scenes from the history and development of the West, Native American culture, and the wildlife of the West. His works can be viewed at the rest stop in Sheridan, outside the downtown City Hall and several other locations. Kuchera died in 2006.