Montana and sculptures

Jim Pasma was known best for his political acumen.

He was the chair of Hill County Democrats for more than three decades and was a force in state and national Democratic politics.

But Pasma's real job during his political years was art. He painted and some of his works are still around Havre. But his passion and his financial success was bronze carvings.

His work sells for thousands of dollars a piece in California, but it hasn't received its just due in Montana, feels Pasma's lifelong friend, Bill Thackeray.

Thackeray organized a display of some of Pasma's bronze sculpture work that will be traveling around the Hi-Line.

The sculptures are now on display at the North Central Senior Center, and people can stop by to see them throughout the day. The display is headed for libraries, schools and colleges around the area, he said, so people can understand the beauty and significance of Pasma's sculptures.

Thackeray said Pasma created hundreds of pieces of work in his lifetime, which ended in 1999 when he succumbed to the lingering effects of radiation from an atomic bomb blast in New Mexico.

His favorite subject was Native Americans and Native culture, and that is reflected in most of his sculptures.

He designed sculptures in the workshop in his southside Havre home. There he could sculpt while keeping his eye on local politics, Thackeray said.

The centerpiece of the display is called "Contemplation," a depiction of a Chippewa Cree mystic in prayer, shown in a photograph on the front page.

Others includes a young pinto.He used a young horse at Fort Belknap as his model for that sculpture.

There is a sculpture of Chief Joseph, the Nez Perce who surrendered with his band after the Battle of the Bear Paws south of Chinook and uttered his famous quote "from where the sun now stands, I will fight no more."

Thackeray said he and Pasma attended Burnham School, a one-room school west of Havre. Pasma, he said, was a smart, energetic, friendly young man who hated going to school. He decorated the school with his paintings.

After eighth-grade graduation, Pasma promptly signed up to join the U.S. Marines  Though he was 15 and technically too young to enlist, he managed to get through enlistment officers.

He brought Thackeray, who was years younger,  along with him to enlist, but the Marines laugherd and turned away because he was too young.

After he got out of the Marines, Pasma returned to Havre, and began his sculpting. The then-chair of the Democrats convinced Pasma to seek a seat on the party's county committee.

The next thing he knew, Pasma was party chair, and he convinced Thackeray to seek a committee set, a position he holds 44 years later.

As his power in the political world continued to rise  - he was on the campaign staff of Sen. Mike Mansfield and Sen. Robert Kennedy - the arts world was paying attention to him.

When his long-time political ally Harriet Miller, Montana superintendent of public instruction, moved to California, she began selling his sculptures there.

It was there, Thackeray said, that they started making big money.

Thackeray said he has received lots of compliments about the display.

It will be shown up and down the Hi-Line in coming  months, he said.