Rutland’s History Honored As Community Adds To Public Art Downtown
Marble Sculpture ‘Stone Legacy’ To Be Dedicated Sept. 20 at Noon
Rutland, Vt – ‘Stone Legacy,’ the initial piece in a series of planned marble sculptures to grace downtown Rutland, will be dedicated Sept. 20 in a ceremony in the new Center Street Marketplace. The sculpture celebrates the art and commerce that were the foundations of the region.
The noontime event will feature a special acknowledgement of Vermont Quarries, operators of the largest underground marble quarry in the world, which is donating the marble for the series. ‘Stone Legacy’ is a the 10-foot, 10-ton sculpture and a collaboration between American and Italian artists, Vermont Quarries, The Carving Studio and Sculpture Center, MKF Properties and Green Mountain Power. The sculpture features a life-sized stone carver with a chisel in one hand and a carving hammer in the other. He appears to lean upon a piece of Vermont marble – the same block from which he was actually carved.
The piece, in Danby White marble from Vermont Quarries’ Dorset Mountain quarry, was designed by Kellie Pereira and carved by Stephen Shaheen, an artist affiliated with the Carving Studio, and Italian carvers Alessandro Lombardo and Andrea Ingrassia. MKF and GMP paid for the work, which has been donated to the City of Rutland.
The project is part of an ongoing series involving GMP’s Rutland Blooms program, MKF Properties, Vermont Quarries, and the Carving Studio and Sculpture Center. Organizers hope to install one or two new sculptures honoring local history each year for the foreseeable future.
Work is ongoing on a sculpture highlighting both Rutlanders’ and Vermonters’ role in the 54thth Regiment, the first black regiment created in the Union Army after the Emancipation Proclamation, funded by Rutland Regional Medical Center; a piece honoring Revolutionary War hero and local resident Ann Story, funded by the Costello family; and a sculpture of Andrea Mead Lawrence, an Olympic star and renowned environmentalist, funded by John and Sue Casella. All three pieces are expected to be completed and installed downtown this fall.
“The Jungle Book” by Barre artist Sean Hunter Williams and funded by Phoenix Books, has already been completed and installed on Center Street.
The public art series is intended to instill pride in local and regional history, beautify the downtown, and support the ongoing revitalization of Rutland.
For more info, contact Steve Costello at steve.costello@greenmountainpower.com.