<p>Arnold Schwarzenegger (man nearest statue) examines the recently completed bronze of him at TW Bronze in Enterprise. Others on hand at the celebrity body-builder's Sept. 2 inspection of the work include, (front, from left), Lewiston sculptor Ralph Crawford, TW metal tooler Dan McWaters, and TW owner/artisan Tim Parks.</p>

ENTERPRISE Body-building icon Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose vast celebrity draws also from careers in screen acting and California state politics, paid Wallowa County a quiet visit on Friday, Sept. 2.

Schwarzenegger came to inspect a larger-than-lifesize bronze statue showing him in his classic body-builders pose from his competitive careers peak. (Schwarzenegger won six straight Mr. Olympia titles from 1969 to 1975, and came out of retirement to win a seventh in 1980.)

Enterprise foundry and gallery TW Bronze, led by owner/artisan Tim Parks, cast the recently completed work, which is an enlarged version of a decades-old clay sculpture created by Lewiston, Idaho, artist Ralph Crawford, who was on hand at TW Bronze for Schwarzeneggers Sept. 2 visit.

Parks says the new bronze is heroic size, equating roughly to life-and-a-quarter. He said he first received word of the project in June 2010, but it wasnt until May of this year that work on the bronze began in earnest. He said Schwarzenegger visited Crawford in Lewiston several months ago to look at the artists heroic size clay original. Crawfords first version of the statue, created in 1980, was only 22 inches, which is somewhere between one-third and one-quarter lifesize.

At the TW Bronze foundry, producing the bronze entailed creating a rubber-and-fiberglass mold of the artists clay sculpture, and then using the mold to create a hollow wax positive, the first of several transitions alternating between negative and positive impressions. Parks said TW Bronze divided the full-size work into 14 different molds, some of which were also cut apart, resulting in 25 different pieces that all had to be reassembled via weld.

The bronzes patina (coloring) was applied to Schwarzeneggers specifications. Parks said his famous customer requested a few subtle changes in the patina for future castings of this sculpture, production of which will be limited to an edition of seven.

Parks said the first completed bronze is slated for shipment to Thal, Austria, Schwarzeneggers home town, where the statue will be included in a museum devoted to Schwarzeneggers successful body-building career and fitness legacy. TW Bronze plans to complete a second statue by Sept. 30, and a third by years end. Bronze No. 2 could be bound for Columbus, Ohio, where the Arnold Classic professional body-building competition is held each year.

Reportedly, Schwarzenegger voiced unreserved satisfaction with the statue he saw at TW Bronze last week. His exact words were, This is fantastic, and he said it about four times, Parks said.

For Parks personally, the need to furnish Schwarzenegger an additional item of customer service was actually an opportunity for an experience Parks wont soon forget. With the airport in Joseph closed for runway work, Schwarzeneggers personal jet was unable to land in Wallowa County. Parks therefore drove to the airport in La Grande to pick Schwarzenegger up, and drove the celebrity back to La Grande after their business in Enterprise was concluded.

During their drives to Enterprise and back, Parks said the two mainly talked about the bronze business. He picked Schwarzenegger up around 12:15 p.m., and returned him to La Grande a couple of hours before sundown. In an interview with the Chieftain later the same day, Parks summarized his view of his afternoon. He said, I just got to spend four hours with Arnold Schwarzenegger… Its cool.