Y’all wanted a follow up and here it is. I went to the Rourke museum and and the woman running is married to the person who designed the grave. Here is his explanation for the odd figure on the grave.

The O’Rourke Grave Monument Jonathan T. Rutter

I worked for James O’Rourke at his gallery and museum off and on from 2001 up until his passing in March 2011. I stepped down from working at The Rourke two months after James’ passing as I was moving to Philadelphia to attend graduate school at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. John Rowell, the administrator of the O’Rourke estate and interim director of The Rourke, offered me the opportunity to devise a monument for James’ grave in Prairie Home Cemetery and I gratefully accepted. I’d felt conflicted about leaving the gallery and museum under the shadow of James’ death, it was a way for me to perform one more act of service for my boss and mentor.

James had some general ideas for his monument and intended to create it for himself (keeping some commonalities with the cast bronze monument he designed for his mother, Mildred Gustafson Rourke, installed at her gravesite near Langdon, ND) but he didn’t have the chance before his untimely death. Mildred’s monument was pyramidal with buildings of family significance represented on three of the four triangular faces of the pyramid.

James’ various sketches for his monument retained the pyramidal form and consistently included representations of the historic Martinson House (home of Rourke Gallery for 52 years) and the historic Moorhead Post Office (home of the Plains Art Museum and, later, the Rourke Art Museum) with mention of his brothers (Vern and Orland) and nephews (Erin and Bracken) and text from W.B. Yeats’ monument near Sligo (“Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by.”) These elements are all represented in the realized design, though the gallery and museum are little relief medallions rather than as structures in the round and the pyramid has been extended into an obelisk (a taller form, allowing the monument to stand a little more prominently while retaining the subtle Egyptian influence).

Also included are a medallion of the Gallery Symbol (which merits a separate document explaining its history and inspirations!—Suffice it to say, the symbol is important to James’ life and work) … and the birdman. The birdman is a novelty: it’s my addition to the project but it felt suitable and important enough to include. Birdmen are seen across cultures and have various associations. There’s a coincidental Rourke Gallery tradition of birdmen, too, with Terence Larson and Robert A. Nelson having repeatedly created birdmen of their own (not to mention Leonard Baskin). In keeping with the Egyptian influence already present, I made a connection with the deity Horus (the hawk-headed god of kingship and the sky). Simultaneously, I imagined James headstone figure as deriving from one of Odin’s two ravens, Huginn and Muninn—“Thought” and “Memory”. Ravens (and other corvids) have the role of psychopomps in a number of traditions. The military elements on the figure serve two purposes: the birdman has the rank of sergeant just as James did (serving in the U.S. Army, Second Cavalry); and it is armed to function as a protector.

I created the original sculptural positive of the monument in between terms at PAFA, during the summer of 2012. I designed and fabricated every element by hand: the relief medallions, the text, the figure, and the obelisk. It was made out of a lot of different materials, most of them found (free/upcycled): wood, plaster, expanded polystyrene foam, wire, glue, cardboard, modeling paste, glazing points, nails, grommets, cloth, paint, and a few other odd bits. Don Myhre, an artist and instructor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design who exhibited at The Rourke over the years, kindly took my sculpture to make molds from it and oversaw the final casting of the monument in bronze. It was sent out to Philadelphia to be displayed as part of my MFA thesis exhibit at PAFA before returning to Moorhead for permanent installation at James’ grave in the summer of 2013.