A project of local artist Longhua Xu that has been five years in the making is one step closer to fruition with the help of National Park College.
Hot Springs artist Longhua Xu started a sculpture for Hot Springs in 2016 that originally was to depict conquistador Hernando de Soto, but now the artwork, titled “The Visitor,” depicts a Native American woman on horseback.
“Since my wife and me, we’ve been living here since 1989, so this (makes Hot Springs) like a second home. We’re trying to give something to the society and make a mark on the home we live,” Xu said.
“So we decided to make a sculpture for the city,” he said, noting at first he wanted to make a sculpture of de Soto, “because we think of why people come here … for the waters.”
A few years later they decided “we have some problems with that … we think that de Soto killed too much people, so we think OK, so we…