SCULPTURE BY LATE LESTERVILLE ARTIST
ACCEPTED INTO MDA ART COLLECTION

“Forged Iron Sculpture”

TUCSON, Ariz., March 11, 2008 - A forged iron sculpture by the late Douglas E. Hendrickson of Lesterville, Mo., has been accepted by the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Art Collection. Now in its 16th year, the Collection features artwork by people from across the country with neuromuscular diseases.

The sculpture was donated to the MDA Art Collection by Hendrickson's wife, Marguerite. The artist died in May 2007 as a result of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease), and his sculpture, which represents the interconnectedness of nature, was donated to honor his memory.

Hendrickson, who had been sculpting since 1960, taught sculpture and design at Drake University in Des Moines. He became a blacksmith and eventually opened his own forge business in Lesterville, earning the nickname "Dr. Iron."

"My personal vocabulary of forms and ideas are influenced by the nature of nature, not the look of nature," Henrdrickson wrote about his work. "Rocks cause the water to move in a certain way and the water then moves the rocks, erodes them and then rearranges the river. The process continues. I form iron, iron forms me."

In 2007, Hendrickson received the Robert Ross MDA Personal Achievement Award for Missouri.

In ALS, for unknown reasons, motor neurons die and the muscles they control become weak and then nonfunctional, including those used for breathing and swallowing.

"We're deeply honored to welcome Douglas Hendrickson's work into the permanent MDA Art Collection," MDA President & CEO Gerald Weinberg said. "His contribution to our Collection will undoubtedly delight all who see it as it travels to galleries and museums as part of special exhibits of the Collection."

The new addition by Hendrickson is on display at MDA's national headquarters in Tucson, Ariz., and can be seen at www.mda.org/commprog/art/displayall.aspx. Hendrickson's piece also will be included in MDA Art Collection traveling exhibits.

The Collection was established in 1992 to focus attention on the achievements of artists with disabilities and to emphasize that physical disability is no barrier to creativity.

The permanent Collection comprises some 350 works by artists aged 2 to 82 and represents all 50 states. Each artist is affected by one of the neuromuscular diseases in the MDA program.

Selected art from the Collection has been exhibited at the Dallas Museum of Art; Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center and Forbes Magazine Galleries in New York; Tucson Museum of Art; Bishop Museum in Honolulu; Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center; Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art; Los Angeles Children's Museum; JFK Center at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; Fresno Metropolitan Museum; Duluth Art Institute; Capital Children's Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn, Mich.

MDA is a voluntary health agency working to defeat neuromuscular diseases through programs of worldwide research, comprehensive services, and far-reaching professional and public health education. In addition to the MDA/ALS Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MDA maintains clinics for Lesterville area adults and children affected by neuromuscular diseases at Southeast Outpatient Rehabilitation in Cape Girardeau, Mo.

The Association's programs are funded almost entirely by individual private contributors.