The coil-built stoneware Peace Arch was executed in 1971 by East Coast artist Bruno LaVerdiere and installed in New Harmony in 1988. It was moved to its current location on JBO Sanctuary grounds just west of the Roofless Church, in 1993. The inscription at the base of the sculpture reads: “This gateway is for all the innocent victims of war and oppression throughout the ages and particularly for all the young who died too soon in this century.”

Bruno LaVerdiere is a former Benedictine monk who then worked as an artist and teacher in the Adirondack Mountain area of upstate New York. He was a resident artist at St. Martin’s Abbey near Olympia, Washington during the 1950s and ‘60s and an instructor at many universities in the U.S. and Italy.

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