Celebrating 90 years of empowering and honoring women with the installation of the sculpture “We Rise” at the Evergreen Arboretum and Gardens. Donated by the Zonta Club of Everett.
EVERETT — The next time you visit Evergreen Arboretum & Gardens at Legion Park, you’ll find a new statue.
“We Rise,” by Everett sculptor Constance Jones, is a bronze sculpture of a woman’s head and torso, her arms outstretched. With the added height from its base, it towers over most visitors at 7 feet tall.
The Zonta Club of Everett commissioned and donated the statue in honor of the club’s 90 years of service, selecting the arboretum as its permanent home. The Everett Parks Department installed the sculpture in the Woodland Garden & Fernery.
The gift to the city was made official by the Everett City Council on Sept. 23.
“Our mission is empowering women and girls to achieve their highest potential,” Zonta Club President Kelsey Taylor said. “The artist was better able to envision our idea than we could have ever imagined. It truly is a symbol of empowering women in our community.”
Taylor said the Everett chapter of Zonta International envisions a world in which women’s rights are recognized as human rights — one where every woman can reach her potential.
“Zonta works with women to help them achieve goals, and I looked at that as stretching and reaching their goals,” Jones said. “The figure is a woman who is reaching.”
The base of the sculpture is a basalt stone that Jones also shaped to resemble a woman’s figure. “It’s her foundation for projecting upward, and stretching beyond what she would normally be able to do,” she said.
