John Sherrill Houser

He pursued two years of independent study in Europe as a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award during which time he also assisted the American sculptor, Avard Fairbanks, on an equestrian monument to the Pony Express and worked with classicist painter, R. H. Ives Gammell in Boston, Massachusetts.

Dedicating most of his adult life to interpreting the human condition through direct experience, he has lived and worked for extended periods among such diverse groups as the mountain people of Appalachia, the Gullah Blacks of South Carolina, The street fakirs (faquiri) of Rome, Italy, hippies of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury (1960's), Mexican and Black migrant laborers, American gypsies and Native Americans including Taos Pueblo, the Tonto Apache, the Eastern Band of Cherokee, and the Yaqui and Tohono O'odham (Papago) tribes of Arizona.

The first monument, The Building of the Missions (Fray García) was completed in 1997, followed by The Spanish Settlement of the Southwest (Don Juan de Oñate, AKA The Equestrian) in 2007.

Two other monuments in the series are now in progress, Benito Juárez, Zapotec Indian president of Mexico and Susan Shelby Magoffin, diarist of the Santa Fe Trail.

The Last Conquistador, an hour-long PBS documentary produced by John Valadez and Cristina Ibarra, featuring the artist and the controversy surrounding Don Juan de Oñate was shown nationally on POVTV, July 15, 2008.