Eternal Vigilance is one of Erie’s most haunting landmarks—a bronze sentinel curled in anguish at the foot of the Erie Art Museum, watching and waiting with eyes that never close.

Created in 1978 by Erie-born artist John Silk Deckard, the sculpture captures what he called “a heroic, self-clutching figure”—a moment of tortured humanity frozen in 500 pounds of cast bronze. Deckard, known for exploring themes of alienation, sacrifice, and powerlessness, used the ancient lost-wax casting method to shape this larger-than-life form, with exaggerated hands and feet and a face contorted in silent despair. The result is unsettling yet magnetic: a figure that feels both deeply personal and eerily universal.

Its fetal posture and raw emotion evoke vulnerability, but its scale and permanence suggest something more mythic—a warning, a witness, a relic of inner struggle. For decades, Eternal Vigilance has stood as a kind of spiritual gatekeeper to the museum, iconic in its discomfort and revered by those drawn to Erie’s darker, more introspective corners. It doesn’t just ask to be seen—it demands to be felt.