Rotarun Gets a New Sculpture
By: Briana Miller for Idaho Mountain Express
Published 12/10/25
Several years ago, a sculpture at Rotarun Ski Area that had been in place for many years was taken back by its artist. The sculpture had been in the lodge for so long that no one could remember when it first arrived.
Rotarun’s associate director, Mimi Crocker, described the metal and glass sculpture as a “snow kachina” that people would throw pennies, dimes or even $100 bills in, as a kind of wishing well. They also deposited love letters to the ski hill in it. The sculpture had been at the lodge under what amounted to an informal loan agreement. There were no hard feelings that the artist chose to take it back, but it was missed.
Last spring, Crocker began discussing a new sculpture with an anonymous patron. They were taken by the work of Wes Walsworth, a third-generation woodworker who has recently turned to sculpting. His wood and metal “totems” can be seen in the Hemmings Gallery in Ketchum.
The donor liked a piece called “Blackwing” and requested something similar for the ski hill. Rotarun’s sculpture, christened “SnoWing,” is about 10 feet high, making it one of the taller pieces completed by Walsworth to date.
It’s more than that. A series of three stacked metal boxes rises from a low concrete base. Each rectangle is faced in reclaimed wood that Walsworth collected from the Hagerman area in southern Idaho. The wood held back spring water for more than 50 years, washing it out to a warm gray and etching it with soft grooves. Shiny aluminum spacers sit between the three rusticated steel segments.
Burnt alder “wings” extend from either side of the top box. Walsworth inlaid a strip of sapele mahogany into this segment and affixed a vertical strip of wood set with three donut-shaped pieces of turquoise next to it. These are the “eyes” of the sculpture.
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