Several years ago I came across Jeremy Russel, a sculptor carving a 50 foot eagle inside an alabaster quarry (a mine really). Believe it or not that’s not the most interesting part of this story.
Jeremy was in a tragic car accident years before he began carving the eagle and actually died a few times while the medical team was attempting to save his life. Jeremy ended up losing a leg and almost all of his memory due to the accident. Constant pain settled in as well.
Sculpting had not been anything Jeremy had ever done before the accident but felt called to create the eagle inside the alabaster mine and began to do just that. After meeting Jeremy and the owner of the mine, Robert Congdon, I became the photographer for the project and eventually the VP of the nonprofit Cost of Freedom Eagle Organization.
The project has since been halted and the White Banks Marble and Alabaster quarry sold and given a new name; Mystic Eagle Quarry. I rather doubt that the Eagle will be finished, but you never know.
Read an article from The Aspen Times on the project here.
Aspen Philanthropist here.
It’s difficult, if not impossible, to picture a 50 foot eagle carved out of the insides of an alabaster mine. I hope the following images help and all of them were made several years ago when the project was in full swing.
The entrance to the quarry which is really a mine.

About a 100 feet into the mine you see the eagle on your right, coming out of the heart of the mine.


All of the work on the eagle has been done by Jeremy using simple hand tools.


That’s quite an accomplishment in and of itself but really is something when you consider that Jeremy was not a sculptor before his near-death accident, was in constant pain (except when working on the Freedom Eagle) and has an artificial right leg.


With 9/11 still very fresh on the USA mind the eagle took on even more meaning, focusing the determined look of our national symbol.


The model of the eagle was almost complete when I visited Jeremy in his make-shift studio several years ago.



Simple tools are all that an artist really needs.

Just 30 feet or so beyond the eagle the corridor veers to the left and runs for about another 100 feet or so before it dead ends. An old coal mine milling machine stood like an Alabaster Dragon at the end of the mine tunnel.

Robert Congdon stands next to the dragon.

The view from the end of the line looking back, complete with my own shadow in the right of the frame. The walls are solid alabaster.

It was, and continues to be, my pleasure and honor to be a part of this project. Where it goes from here I don’t know. The cost of freedom is not free and the eagle reminds us of the ultimate sacrifice so many have made to keep so many free around the world.