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A Semi-Brief History of

The Rush Sculpture Project

April 2026

Greetings

Welcome fellow Rush fans! At long last I’ve decided to finally share what has, up until now, remained my personally crafted collection of Rush inspired sculptures. I hope you’ll enjoy seeing these pieces as much as I’ve enjoyed making them.

The work begins….

I first started my Rush sculpture series beginning with a “Man in the Star” relief in 2013. Inspired by its successful completion, I began building upon that simple clay relief with 1/3 scale portraits of the guys, taking on the challenge of seeing how closely I could capture their Kings-era likenesses. Once the portraits were complete, I decided to unite them into a monument, which I named The Men Who Hold High Places, both a tribute to the Kings album and an homage to the song that inspired it.

Closer to my Art

Since I sculpt these pieces just for personal enjoyment, I’m fortunate to have the luxury of no time limit which frees me up to get as creative as I’d like. (I also use Monster Clay which is an oil based clay that can be worked indefinitely without drying out.) As a result of that creative freedom, I decided do a concept piece to take full advantage of the three dimensional aspect of sculptural design. Some of the front elements on TMWHHP were more basic, but I had a blast going all out on the backside of the piece, which for sculpture, can sometimes end up about as interesting as a humans backside. And I just couldn’t let that happen.

With a decades long career, Rush has such a deep well of concepts to explore that I found it very challenging to settle on a direction at first. In the end, I managed to string together many ideas and combine them into one cohesive piece. Much in the same way that a Rush song always seems to gel with so many diverse elements. At least that was my hope and aspiration.

The Puppet King

Following the TMWHHP sculpture, I turned my focus to recreating The Puppet King as a stand alone piece - paying close attention to as many details as possible. To complete the setting I also designed an elaborate castle base. Once again I could not allow the backside of the sculpture to become a wasted opportunity. I imagined the long, flowing purple cape to continue behind the throne and incorporated elements of the rear cover of AFTK to round out the debris field of the castle ruins.

The Necromancer - Version One

Finally, in what would become my most ambitious piece yet, I found myself looking back for inspiration to where it all started on that fateful day in the summer of 1975. That’s when I heard my first Rush track - The Necromancer, on a giant basement stereo console at a friends house four doors down.*

I decided that The Necromancer would make a really cool sculpture and I was on a mission to bring him to life in clay. So I started with the intention of replicating the cover character, again paying close attention to every detail that I could discern. This was not the easiest of tasks, but I thought the result was reasonably faithful to the original design. In the end I liked the piece, but still found that the results left me feeling somehow unsatisfied.

The Necromancer - Version Two

After a few months of living with the piece, it seemed to me that something was missing. It just didn’t seem complete and I found myself wanting to expand the design. I posed a few questions to explore: Where did the tower steps lead to below? What might be behind the Necromancer as he stood looming in his tower? How could I include the Evil Prism Eye? The only way I could work all this out short of phoning Hugh Syme himself, was to do an extended version with longer steps, complete with a cloud stack to hold the Prism and a deluxe base with new elements. As the extended base began taking shape, I realized that I could, and should turn the expanded design into a multi-media display in order to fully bring the piece to life. I decided to take a few design liberties and imagined what might exist beyond the visible album cover boundaries. The extra effort turned out to be well worth it. I was much more satisfied with the extended design iteration where I could employ more of my own creativity.

The Journey Continues

And that has brought me to today in 2026 with my small menagerie of tribute pieces. Since these works were done some years back, I’m excited to say that some new pieces are in the works as I continue my Rush art exploration through sculpture.

For now though, I hope everyone enjoys what I’ve created thus far, using all practical materials. These works are by no means intended to be perfect, but it was and continues to be a labor of love — loads of fun, with a few moments of teeth gnashing, hair pulling and a great deal of hard work. In the end, though, it was mostly pure joy to craft these pieces, inspired by my favorite band and, I hope one of yours as well.

Random yet Interesting Facts

Though not Rush related, it’s noteworthy that the place where I first heard a Rush record was formerly the childhood family home of Broadway singer and Academy Award winning actor Joel Grey, who reportedly staged his own musicals in the garage as a young boy in the 1930’s. Adding to that, the stereo console from which I heard that same Rush album, was passed down from Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter Eric Carmen by way of a family friend. Many of you may not be familiar with either of these uber talented men, but I find it fascinating that the musical arts seemed to be in the air and so close to home all those years ago.