Lawyer Brings Lumps of Clay to Life

Austin attorney Don Davis has a way with clay. Life-size sculptures of golf greats Tom Kite and Harvey Penick on the grounds of the Austin Country Club each started as 200-pound lumps of oil-based clay that Davis sculpted into the golfers’ image and had bronzed at a Hill Country foundry. The sculptures of Kite and Penick, a world-renowned golf instructor who died on the day the statues were unveiled in April 1995, are among many done by Davis, 62, a partner in Byrd, Davis, Eisenberg, Walter & Furman.

Other golfers he has sculpted include Jack Nicklaus and the late Payne Stewart. Sculpting golfers only seems natural for Davis, who says he typically spends his leisure time sculpting or playing golf. “This is what I do to relax,” he says. But golfers aren’t his only subjects. Davis is working on sculptures of children and animals dancing in a circle for a “healing garden” to be created at the Children’s Hospital of Austin. The garden is “going to be a place for the children to get out of the hospital, get in the fresh air, get the smell of the hospital out of their noses for a while and be able to play a little bit,” he says.