Tsuchiya has changed the name of the sculpture from “Come Unto Me” to “Lux Mundi” which is Latin for “Light of the World.” Tsuchiya said he made the change because he felt the old name wasn’t descriptive of the sculpture’s message or final image.
“ ‘Come Unto Me’ is what Jesus said as he calls the children near,” Tsuchiya said. “It’s a very stationary image, and this Jesus is standing and walking. I felt like ‘Light of the World’ conveyed a better image.”
The statue will be a full figure of Jesus, arms outstretched. At the bottom, Tsuchiya said he will inscribe “Love one another as I have loved you,” a verse from John 15:15.
Last week, Tsuchiya and the scale model of his vision of the statue were in the offices of Exact Metrology a high-tech firm in Springdale. There, John Legleu scanned the key parts of the statue — head, hands and feet — with a 6.6 million megabyte camera. Those scans will be enlarged and used to create full-size Styrofoam molds to cast the final statue, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.
This was the second time Tsuchiya has taken his Jesus statue to Exact Metrology. He originally created a 1/35 scale model version that was scanned into the computer and used to create the 5-foot version for the scan.
Staff Writer Justin McClelland contributed to this report.