Amanda Matthews held Nettie Depp’s hands in hers. 

Matthews curled her fingers, comparing the shape of Depp’s clay hands to her own flesh.

Matthews is a sculptor, and Depp is her current subject. Once Depp is cast in bronze, she will stand in the Kentucky Capitol building, the first woman to be honored there in sculpture form. 

In 2014, Matthews was researching a project related to gender equity— “or gender inequity,” she said— when she read in a Courier Journal article that the only full-size statue honoring a female on state-owned land in Kentucky was Carolina, Confederate General John Breckinridge Castleman’s horse.

“I just couldn’t believe that was true,” Matthews said. “It blew me away.” 

Angry, she went to tell her husband Brad Connell, with whom she co-owns Prometheus Art, their foundry and metal fabrication and design shop. 

Once Matthews told him why she was upset, Connell was upset, too. 

“So I asked her what she was going to do about it,” he said. 

Matthews called the Capitol and asked to talk with the governor, then Steve Beshear. Instead, she was put in contact with Eleanor Jordan, the executive director of the Commission on Women. 

“I just explained to her that this was not acceptable,” Matthews said. “We had to change this.” 

Jordan eventually recommended that Matthews start a public charity, so she founded the Artemis Initiative.

“The mission is to create public art that is available to everyone free of charge that honors all of those who have not had a full voice, all of the people who have had a lesser voice throughout history,” Matthews said. 

Matthews and Jordan had no road map for a project like this— because in 228 years of statehood, no one in Kentucky had ever made a sculpture of a woman for the Capitol building. 

“I started creating my own map, basically,” Matthews said.

Matthews knew she wanted to honor a woman in a full-size bronze sculpture, but she asked Jordan and other members of the Commission for Women to decide which woman. 

They chose Nettie Depp. 

Born in 1874, Depp was elected as Barren County school superintendent in 1913, becoming the first woman to be elected to public office in that county, seven years before the Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote. 

She was a teacher educated at a normal school that later became part of Western Kentucky University. She returned to being a teacher and a principal after she declined to run for reelection as superintendent in 1917. 

Depp was an advocate of many education reforms, including compulsory education for children— all children, including girls and African Americans.   

“I think she really went far outside of what was considered the comfortable norm for her time,” Matthews said. 

Matthews said she gets very close to the subjects of her sculptures— even when the subject died in 1932 and she’s only working off a few photographs. 

Making a bronze sculpture is a long, labor-intensive process, so Matthews and Connell have already spent hundreds of hours working on Depp.

Matthews tries not to think too much about Depp’s eventual installation in the Capitol, she said. 

“It’s a little overwhelming thinking that you’re doing something that has not been done before in this many hundreds of years,” Matthews said.

When Depp is cast in bronze and no longer in the Prometheus Art studio, Matthews said she will miss sharing a space with her. It’s been six years since this idea began, and now Depp is “finally starting to come to life.”

Matthews and Connell sculpted Depp in clay, then a rubber mold was applied to the clay shape. Next will come hollow wax replicas, which will be covered in a ceramic shell mold. The wax will eventually be melted out, and bronze will be poured into the ceramic shell molds. 

Then comes welding and final touches— many, many more hours of work before the sculpture will be finished and transported to its final resting place. The plan is to install the sculpture this August as part of a centennial celebration of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.

“You feel like you have a kinship with the person you’re honoring, because you really want to get to know what inspired them,” Matthews said. “It’s very inspiring to share that same space with the people that I’m honoring, and it’s difficult when they’re not in that space any longer, when we finish.” 

However, Matthews said, once Depp is in her new space— the Capitol— others can be inspired by her, too. 

Matthews said she thinks Depp was the right choice— and, it turns out, Depp is Matthews’ great-great aunt. Matthews’ great-grandmother was Depp’s sister. 

Many people across the state are somehow related to her— including actor and Kentucky native Johnny Depp. This allows many Kentuckians to have yet another level of connection with the sculpture, Matthews said. 

However, many others don’t know who Depp was at all, which Matthews sees as another advantage. 

“She is the perfect person to serve or stand as a proxy for so many other women,” Matthews said. “She’s the perfect person to amplify and honor others.”

Depp was the right choice for now, but Matthews said she is not the only choice— “there are many other women worthy of being honored,” she said. 

And hopefully Depp will not be alone for long. Matthews said she hopes that more women will soon be honored in the Capitol.  

“Hopefully this will change the trajectory of a really stubborn history in Kentucky, what I call an obstinate norm, that has just been very difficult to change,” Matthews said. “Usually the second time something happens, it’s a little bit easier than the first time, so hopefully it won’t take another 228 years.”