In 2117, a local artist might be completing her greatest work thanks to Bird Ross and Brenda Baker.

Ross and Baker, artists working in Madison today, are behind the new endowment fund “Women Artists Forward Fund.” Expected to launch with start-up donations in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the fund will be set up to make unrestricted grants available to individual female artists in the Madison area long into the future.

The idea — and the fundraising effort — was sparked by the story behind the iconic statue “Forward,” which has stood on the Capitol grounds for well over a century.