Temples are hallowed ground, sheltering a community’s most coveted religious or cultural artifacts. Ancient Greece cultivated its Athenian Acropolis — the hilltop complex that includes the ancient Parthenon — as a physical sanctuary for the religion, politics and civic values that bound together Athenian civilization.

This summer, sculptor Alan LeQuire’s “Athena Parthenos” marks 35 years residing in the central gallery of Nashville’s to-scale replica Parthenon. Around her, civic life has flourished in Centennial Park. The city’s West End plaza has hosted political rallies, arts festivals, yoga classes, blood drives, Musicians Corners and wedding photos. Over the past decade, extensive landscaping reinvented the park’s walking paths and lawn. Two years ago, the city dedicated a nearby bench to another member of Nashville’s pantheon, Taylor Swift, who name-checks the park in Folklore’s “Invisible String.” Most days, public life here takes the form of picnics, pickup soccer and dog-walking. 

LeQuire considers the sculptor’s role in all this. What becomes big and bronze? Whose faces get cast into metal or chiseled into marble, and why? Like his “Athena,” these questions are epic, and they span millennia. “Athena,” unveiled in 1990, was an early commission for LeQuire, who was raised in Nashville. Other works — notably the nudes of “Musica” at the top of Demonbreun, as well as a women’s suffrage monument also in Centennial Park — have found homes in the city, launched from his longtime workshop and gallery on Charlotte Avenue. 

His latest exhibit, titled Monumental Figures, will join “Athena” in the Parthenon from June 13 until Sept. 21. Along with assistants Kat Jay, Henry Fox and Olivia Blanchard, as well as studio manager Amber Lelli, LeQuire has assembled a sculpture collection honoring “regular people that have inspired him,” with a particular focus on people from Nashville — all made by hand using only hand tools, no computers. Three are collaborations between LeQuire and Lelli, whose work with diverse media can be seen across the city. 

LeQuire reflected on his work, old and new, with the Scene ahead of this summer’s show.  

Do you think differently about the “Athena Parthenos” since completing the work 35 years ago? 

No, but it has been fun to see the work become part of our community. The statue of Athena was the completion of my training as a sculptor. I saw it that way at the time, and it has turned out to be true. Most of what I learned making Athena has stuck with me. I am still using the same skills today.

How has your sculpture practice evolved over those 35 years? How has your view of art, and its role in society, changed in that time?

This is a big topic that I don’t think I can answer in just a paragraph. I was always dependent on commissioned work because I had to make a living. This forced me to adapt my skill and tastes to those of my clients. I accepted this from the beginning. The overarching aesthetic in the U.S. is realism, but I never cared that much about realism; today we can use machines to do that. The invention of 3D scanning and digital printing is influencing sculpture like photography influenced painting 100 years ago. I still view working from life as the core of my artistic practice. The natural world has become more and more important to me over the years, but I don’t feel compelled to represent it realistically. Teaching became an important part of my practice and links me to my students and other teaching artists. I am part of the atelier tradition. 

Your recent subject matter has celebrated significant historical figures and their contributions to public life. Why? 

I love making portraits of people. I wanted to honor women in sculpture from the beginning, but there were very few commissions available. Fortunately, I won a competition to make a “Woman Suffrage” monument for the state Capitol, and that led to four other major commissions for suffrage monuments. I have created at least 25 public portraits of women, and I’m proud of the fact that I have been able to narrow the gap between men and women memorialized in sculpture.

How does the sculptor relate to, or contribute to, society? To what extent has that changed since classical times?

Another big subject impossible to answer in a paragraph. In the best cases, works of public art help define the values of a community or a society. The importance of a work of art may not be evident for decades. I think the artist was always subject to and dependent on the taste of their client. The same is true today. There may be a few public art pieces that are exempt from the world of patronage, but I can’t think of any. The sculptor who creates public art is always competing with someone. In ancient times patronage was usually awarded to the most skilled artist. Today, not so much. Skill is not valued as much as novelty.

What motivated you to assemble Monumental Figures? How do you relate scale and subject matter in this exhibit?

Jennifer Richardson, curator at the Parthenon Museum, offered me an exhibit upstairs at the Parthenon. This started me thinking about the wonderful space where I spent three years of my life finishing “Athena.” Because the space is so huge, I made all the new sculptures as large as I could handle. I have created 24 monumental pieces and eight relief paintings in 12 months. The scale is roughly twice life for most of the figures, and I am very comfortable working on that scale. They feel heroic, and their sculptural presence is augmented by the scale.

The cast of characters that I have chosen may seem random, because it is. I believe we are all worthy of monumental statues, and when I planned the works for this exhibit, I chose those people that I felt an emotional connection to at that time. There is no other principle or motivation. I am working from observation, but also imagination and memory. These people were most present to me on all three levels. [Civil rights movement leader and community organizer] Fannie Lou Hamer is someone whose courage has inspired me for years. I love that I have the opportunity to honor her. Some of our most significant heroes are being forgotten, and I want to bring them back to our attention. This is the whole point of historical monuments, and I am trying to do that in a new way.