The touching love story behind Yumi, a 22-foot bronze elephant

LEHI — When sculptor Matthew Gray Palmer was first approached by California State University, Fullerton, to create a statue of an elephant for its campus, he had no clue it would have such a big impact on his life.

But on July 30 as he showed off the completed artwork that was getting ready to be shipped to California, Palmer tearfully shared just how important the pachyderm became to him.

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The story begins seven years ago when he was asked to make the commission for Cal State Fullerton, which is the home of the Titans and has an elephant mascot named Tuffy.

For about three years, Palmer worked with student groups to finalize the design and pose, from sketches to mini concept works. Once that was done, the monumental task of creating his largest freestanding bronze sculpture began.

The process included carving the sculpture first out of clay, making molds and then casting the bronze in 70 different pieces. From there, the pieces had to be reassembled and welded together before Palmer could go in and carve details to make the weld lines disappear into the design. Certain steps of the project took him to different states across the country.

While working on the sculpture, he had to spend a lot of time away from his “beloved” Ann Holbrook, his longtime girlfriend. The two were dealing with some challenges in their personal lives, and it made working on the elephant that much more difficult for Palmer.

“We’ve been through a lot on this project, and it’s been really challenging in a lot of ways because of how much time it’s taken and being apart during certain life events and things like that. And I became, in some ways, kind of resentful of the project because it was taking me away from important things,” Palmer said.

But Holbrook saved him from the despair, continually encouraging and supporting Palmer, reminding him to keep going and that the elephant would turn out “majestic and beautiful.”

Even though the Cal State students will likely call the statute Tuffy, Palmer has his own name for her: Yumi. The name, though, has an alternate spelling of “You Me,” to represent his relationship with Holbrook and how it took both of them to finish it.

“I think of it as a co-creation between the two of us because Ann’s really the heart of the piece,” Palmer said.

The finished product is an almost “mythical” creature, reaching 22 feet into the air with her trunk lifting to the sky. The texture on Yumi’s body isn’t accurate to actual elephant skin as the wrinkle lines are much more stylized, but they still read from a distance as elephant skin.

“This became a total meditation, drawing all these different lines over her. So I kind of think of them as her storylines,” he said. “Through this process, I carved them all once in clay and then I had to carve them again in some ways in metal. So it was like revisiting in memory these different aspects of it.”

With the sculpture nearly complete, the 18,000-pound statue was shipped off to California. In order to do so, a crane was used to take her head off, then she was tipped forward to fit onto a trailer for transport.

Once in California, Yumi was reassembled and anchored down in the carefully designed garden area for students to enjoy.

“To me, at least, she reads very compassionate and kind and strong. In the case of elephants, they’re matriarchal, and I don’t know, I just like that nurturing aspect of community. As well in this particular case, even though it’s just a university mascot, hopefully it’s more than that,” he said.

Palmer, who used to be based in Washington state but recently moved to Utah while working on Yumi, is a renowned artist who has many pieces on display throughout the state. From a stone harbor seal and bronze polar bears at the Hogle Zoo, to bighorn sheep and ravens at Arches National Park and a larger-than-life desert tortoise at Snow Canyon State Park, thousands of people have seen and enjoyed his handiwork.

“You can get up close to something, and I believe that it’s something that acts as a vehicle for sort of widening your perspective about your space in the world,” he said about his animal artwork.

Palmer has always been a staunch believer in connecting his art with environmentalism, promoting the conservation of plants, wildlife and natural beauty.

“I’ve always been passionate about the natural environment and conservation and the idea of being able to inspire people to think about their relationship to the rest of the living world,” he said.

For Palmer and Holbrook, it is emotional seeing Yumi complete, but it’s also bittersweet letting her go.

“We’re going to miss her. Celebration, completion and grief — she’s been such a part of our lives for seven years,” Holbrook said.

On Yumi’s right hind leg, Palmer artistically signed his work, blending the words into the elephant’s wrinkles, with the year, his and Holbrook’s initials and the inscription “Yumi, You Me.”

“It’s been a really impactful thing that I didn’t expect when they were like, ‘Hey, wanna make us a big elephant for a university mascot?'” Palmer said with a laugh. “And now, she means a lot.”