Sculpted Figure. USA. Tom Clark. Ezra. Signed. Man of Color Wearing Blue Overalls & Brown Coat & Holding an Ax. 1993. 12''H

(May, 1993) My favorite photograph of my father shows him standing next to one on his farming friends, an older black man of intermediate age. We often think of farmers as brooding of ill-tempered, dependent as they are on the fates of the weather. But I never knew this farmer to be in a bad mood - he accepted whatever the Lord gave, without complaint. My atatue is based upon this photograph, and I have honored him with the Old Testamentname of Ezra, a scribe who had "set his heart to study the law of the Lord." He is chopping wppd and like his wife Ebbie, he knows that all work is the Lord's work. My Ezra reads his Bible every day and his trust in God is an inspiration to others. His abiding faith is a living example of Ezra 7:6; " ... for the hand of the Lord his God was upon him."