Sculptor-Sailor Knows His Work, Inside and Out

DANA POINT — As an instructor, Christopher Pecharka has given life to lectures for thousands of Southern California schoolchildren aboard the Pilgrim, the brig owned by the Orange County Marine Institute.

But as an artist, Pecharka has toiled in the wings, selling only a few artworks to clients.

“Many people think I’m a sailor who happens to be an artist,” said Pecharka, who lives in Dana Point. “But I’m an artist who happens to sail and teach.”

And he is a lucky one.

On Saturday, the Marine Institute unveiled Pecharka’s most recent work, a 225-pound bronze of two sailors at sea.

Commissioned by the institute to recognize Jim and Sue Swenson of Laguna Niguel and the Swenson Family Foundation, which contributed $250,000 to help build the Maritime Historical Center, the sculpture is welded to a 6-foot-tall base of black marble.

What makes the statue and Pecharka’s teacher-to-sculptor story unique is that it’s his first bronze.

“Ordinarily,” said Pecharka, 34, “it takes years getting a bronze statue publicly displayed like this, and you would have to submit a bid for such a commission complete with sketches, color slides and everything else. That’s why this artwork means a lot to me; it’s kind of like my official coming-out.”

The statue can be found next to the Pilgrim’s mooring.

Choosing Pecharka from other talented people was a decision based on his hard work aboard the Pilgrim, in addition to his drawings and etchings of tall ships at the institute, said Stanley Cummings, the institute’s executive director.

“It was an act of faith to go with him,” Cummings said. “But he has been proving his talents to us for a long time now. He deserved that act of faith.”

Pecharka was named the institute’s artist-in-residence last month, Cummings said, giving the gregarious, sharp-witted sculptor a new title. He was an instructor at the institute for four years.

“This is a big moment for Chris,” said the institute’s Dan Stetson, who has sailed with Pecharka aboard the Pilgrim, where Pecharka barks out orders to sailors as one of two mast captains.

Pecharka’s parents, George and Ruth, drove from Pennsylvania to attend the unveiling.

“My dad’s proud of me,” Pecharka said. “He’s always been an art lover, and just the other day--and you got to understand that I’m one of six brothers--he said that each of us is doing something that he always wanted to do.”

The statue project began about 10 months ago, when Pecharka was asked to come up with drawings on the theme of sailing and Richard Henry Dana, a sailor aboard the original Pilgrim in 1834 who wrote “Two Years Before the Mast.” Dana Point is named for the author.

“I kept submitting drawings, and Stan and others would say they either liked them or didn’t like them,” Pecharka said. “We kept filtering out what we didn’t want until finally we had a consensus of the two sailors.”

The statue, “The Topmen,” recognizes that hardy breed of sailor who worked aloft in fair or foul weather in the 1800s.

Pecharka said he sought historical accuracy, including the sailors’ rigging belts and also how they kept their hair tied in a pigtail.

Pecharka seized the moment to explain that sailors tarred their pigtails to keep their hair out of the way and protect it from the weather.

“If you’ve ever read Richard Dana’s book, you would know how hard it was for these men to climb up a rigging and do their work,” Pecharka said. “I wanted to have a lot of that realism so people who do sail wouldn’t have to say, ‘He’s missed this or that.’ ”