A PROJECT SHOT THROUGH WITH HOPE

SCULPTURE WILL POUND GUNS INTO A GIANT PLOWSHARE

HARRISONBURG, VA. -- HARRISONBURG, VA. -- There's a two-lane road that takes you out of this town, past barns, rolling pastures and a machine shop where they fix tractors. In the yard next to the shop these days you will often see a small, sweet-faced Mennonite woman who looks like a librarian, standing over her huge collection of guns.

Hundreds of guns, some of which were almost certainly used to kill people on the streets of Washington. On a recent afternoon, they were spread out on a low trailer in the sunshine, organized by type. The Saturday-night specials -- the ones that young people with a yen for bloodshed buy cheap -- formed a silvery pile all their own.

Next to the trailer is the sculpture. It's metal and 16 feet high and looks at first like a petrified tidal wave. Actually it's a gigantic representation of the blade of a plow -- a plowshare, as in Chapter 2, Verse 4 of the book of Isaiah: They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Esther Augsburger, the sweet-faced woman, is a 63-year-old sculptor on a mission. Earlier this year she persuaded the District police to give her the guns they collected after boxer Riddick Bowe offered to pay $100, no questions asked, for each one turned in. She has gone after guns collected through similar programs in the Washington suburbs as well. Another shipment arrived from Montgomery County, where the guns had been gathered by a community group that works against gun violence. All the weapons have been disabled.

Now Augsburger and her 41-year-old son Michael, also a sculptor, are welding the guns onto the big plowshare, which they built from several sheets of steel. In the end, its surface will be covered with 2,000 guns. The aim is to create a physical expression of those lines from Isaiah, translated for modern urban America.

If the Augsburgers have their way, a few months from now the resulting four-ton object will be transported to a square in downtown Washington, where it will stand permanently between statues of Abraham Lincoln and John Marshall -- or, as Augsburger likes to say, "between freedom and justice."

The idea is that anyone who happens to be walking along C Street NW near the D.C. Superior Court Building, which is where the sculpture will stand, G will be reminded that at a certain point in the middle of the violent, ultimate decade of the 20th century, some people in one of the most murderous American cities actually gave up their weapons.

Esther Augsburger says it is possible that a plaque will record that they gave them up for cash.

Cynical times tend to produce cynical art. But none of that for Augsburger, an earnest, religious woman who says she believes in the power of good works. "We want this to be a positive symbol and a symbol of hope for the nation's capital, and of the positive good that it does when we lay down our arms," she says.

Watching her stand over the guns in her pink Izod sweater, you have to wonder how Augsburger ever got involved in this project. It all goes back to last December, she says, when Michael was visiting her and her husband, Myron, who is a Mennonite clergyman, at their home in Washington. They live part time in the city, where Myron used to lead an interdenominational church on Capitol Hill, and part time here.

They were watching a TV news show when a report came on about Bowe's gun-collection program. "That's a shame to melt those guns down," Michael said. "There's nothing to show what's been happening in our generation."

His mother agreed. They came up with the idea of a sculpture based on the biblical verse, and soon she was on the phone to the District police, asking for the guns. The police have enthusiastically supported the project, and community groups have joined the cause.

Adding a new piece of public art to the Washington landscape is always a tricky business, and there is no guarantee that the sculpture will win all the necessary approvals. In fact, no one is certain yet exactly whose approval is needed. The line between federal and District jurisdiction gets a little murky regarding spaces on or near Pennsylvania Avenue.

As a result, although it is on District property, such entities as the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corp. and the National Capital Planning Commission may have a say, according to Sally Byington, a consultant who is overseeing the sculpture's journey through the bureaucracy. Then there are such questions as who will cover insurance and maintenance. This sculpture may require more attention than most, in that it could become, as Byington predicts, "an interactive memorial."

"We can anticipate that there's memorabilia going to be left there," she says, mentioning the flowers, letters and personal items that people leave every day at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall.

The bureaucracy so far is sending out positive signals. The D.C. Council recently passed a ceremonial resolution endorsing the project, the mayor is behind it, and others like Charles Atherton, secretary of the Commission of Fine Arts, an independent federal agency, have indicated that they are at least sympathetic to the idea.

The Augsburgers are aware of these hurdles and others. They are funding the sculpture through loans and are still trying to raise the $90,000 they expect the project to cost, from the National Endowment for the Arts and other sources. Nonetheless, they work steadily along on the piece, and speak of it with the serenity of people who just know they have hit on a Big Idea that cannot not succeed.

Esther says her "ultimate dream" is to have local gang leaders attend the dedication and lay down their arms. She also wants local schools to incorporate the piece into their curricula, as a way of teaching about violence.

"Important to us is that it be more than just a sculpture," she says. "We want it to make a difference. What do kids with guns know about plowshares?"

On the other hand, the sculpture's guns are certain to fascinate those same kids.

"Each gun's going to tell a story," says Byington. "For a youth of the city to surrender his gun is like surrendering his manhood."

"Going through the guns ... has been an awesome experience," Esther Augsburger says as she stands over the trailer with its piles of weapons. "You pick one up and you wonder who died."

Her son, who grew up hunting with his father and believes there are proper uses for guns, picks up some of the antique models. One he identifies as a "ramrodder," just like those used by Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickock. Another bears the date 1850.

But it's those gimcrack Saturday-night specials that really draw the eye, for some reason. Michael Augsburger picks up one, a .32-caliber revolver with someone's street name scratched into the side. Since the gun-collection program guaranteed anonymity, he asks that the name not be reported.

He turns it over. On the butt are seven crude notches, which look as if they were made with a punch and a hammer.

"There's not going to be an eighth," he says.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.