WRIGHTS TAKE FLIGHT IN HANDS OF LOCAL ARTIST.

Byline: Carol Rock Staff Writer

NEWHALL - Aboard a plane home from Ohio, Mark Allen Henn was still thanking inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright for his flight.

A century after the Wright brothers broke the bounds of Earth, Henn was returning from a dedication ceremony for his life-size bronzes of the two aviation pioneers. A Disney animator by day, Mann is an after-hours sculptor who created his clay models of the Wright brothers during nights and weekends in his Newhall studio.

The bronze statues are now the centerpiece of a river park in Dayton, Ohio - Wilbur standing with arms outstretched, demonstrating to Orville his discovery of wing warping.

``They're keeping vigil over downtown Dayton,'' explained Henn, showing visitors photos of the park that offers a sweeping view of the city. The statues stand in Legacy Plaza, which is part of a 12-acre park on Deeds Point, where the Mad and Miami rivers converge.

The park will become a center of activity starting July 3, when the Inventing Flight organization will host an elaborate series of events celebrating 100 years of man's ability to fly. But long after the tents come down and the last model plane leaves the demonstration area, Henn's brothers in bronze will be there to tell their story.

``North Carolina gets more attention because that's where the 1903 flight took place at Kitty Hawk,'' explained Henn, a 1976 graduate of Trotwood-Madison High School near Dayton. ``Their license plates even say `First in Flight.' But Dayton is where the Wright brothers lived and where they developed, designed and built their planes. They only went back (to Kitty Hawk) a few times to test some designs.''

With all the research he did for the sculptures, Henn has become an expert on the Wright brothers. His grandfather, who worked at the Dayton Post Office, actually met Orville Wright at a stamp-collecting event in 1948. Henn brought the Wright connection full circle when he met the great-grandniece of one of the brothers, Amanda Wright Lane, at the statues-dedication ceremony.

In fact, it was a family connection that brought Henn to Legacy Park. His father, a retired junior college teacher, was showing a smaller version of the Wright brothers statue to the retired president of the college, who happened to mention it to an official from the Inventing Flight group. Liking what they saw, group members commissioned the sculptor to supersize his masterpiece.

He started on the life-size sculptures in December 2001 and finished the clay figures by April 2002. They were trucked to the Sun Foundry in Burbank, where the bronze casting was done, and the statues were shipped to their temporary home in the Dayton Art Institute, where they stayed until placement at Legacy Park. All that he has left of the original clay statues are the busts, part of one leg and a jumbled pile of four feet wearing old-fashioned shoes - remnants salvaged from the kilns. Henn plans on recycling the oil-based clay, which never dries out.

His garage studio is lined with creations of the two-dimensional kind, a series of pencil sketches and animation cels from various Disney productions, including ``The Fox and the Hound,'' ``Aladdin,'' ``Little Mermaid,'' ``The Lion King'' and ``Beauty and the Beast.'' His job is to draw life into characters that charm their way from the screen into the hearts of the audience, something he's done since he graduated from the California Institute of the Arts 23 years ago.

One side of the studio is lined with small clay sculptures - maquettes - of his many characters, created by Disney as mementos for the crew. Looking at maquettes of his subjects Belle and Jasmine atop a drawing desk, Henn rattled off the list of movies he's worked on, noting that most of his subjects have been heroines.

``I guess you could say I do all the princesses,'' he laughed.

But his love of history is what makes him take the short walk from his living room to the studio where he can feel the clay in his hands and mold the features of explorers Lewis and Clark or a young Buffalo Bill.

``I like to work in real people,'' he explained, gesturing to a bronze rider on a rushing horse. ``This is Pvt. John Martini of the Seventh Cavalry. He was the bugler who got the last message from Gen. Custer, and it's assumed he was the last one to talk to Custer at Little Big Horn.''

Other bronzes, which fetch in the neighborhood of $2,500-$3,000, were scattered near a window - Lincoln reviewing the troops on horseback, nameless Civil War soldiers ready to fight one more battle.

He recently completed his second commission, a bust of the mayor of his hometown of Trotwood, and would like to do some World War II pieces. He also wants to participate in the creation of the Veterans Memorial Plaza in downtown Newhall. His work was seen during the 2002 Bella Via festival, and he has exhibited his sculptures with the Santa Clarita Artists Association.

Henn's most recent work for Disney, an animated film titled ``Home On the Range'' that is set to open next year, might be his last hand-drawn feature. With the advent of computer imaging, he and other long-time animators are being brought up to speed with computer classes so they can continue working. But if the sculpture business takes off, Henn is ready to go along for the ride.

``I feel right at home slogging the clay around,'' he said, tweaking the brim of Orville's derby hat.

Carol Rock,[phone]

carol.rock(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(color) Artist Mark Allen Henn of Newhall is still close to his smaller models - this one of Orville - for the life-size Wright brothers statues he created for Dayton, Ohio.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer