It’s one of many sculptures that organizers of the effort hope to install downtown in the coming years. An unveiling of the design sketch of the sculpture, a stonecutter, took place Tuesday afternoon before a crowd of about 40 people.
“This is ultimately going to be the first of what we hope will be many, many sculptures of this kind of scale and caliber in downtown Rutland over time,” said Steve Costello, a vice president at Green Mountain Power.
GMP and MKF Properties, headed by Rutland developer Mark Foley, commissioned the work to pay tribute to those who built the stone industry in Rutland County, the stonecutters, quarry workers and artists.
“It really is about the community, it’s about the city, it’s about the whole region,” Costello said. “When you think of stone, you think of every place around here: Danby, Proctor, West Rutland, out to Castleton and Fair Haven.”
Costello, Foley and Carol Driscoll, the carving studio’s executive director, held a news conference Tuesday at GMP’s Energy Innovation Center in downtown Rutland to announce the joint project.
“It talks about Rutland, its past,” Foley said of the sculpture. “It celebrates its history, and it’s using some of its natural resources to demonstrate that.”
The sculpture, which will have a marble base, features a life-size stonecutter, holding a chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other.
“This is the carver sort of taking a break and assessing where he’s at, but it’s also carving him out of the constraints of the block,” Driscoll said, looking at the image displayed on an easel. “It’s a great design. It will be different when it gets into three dimensions.”
The sculpture will be designed by Steve Shaheen, a stone sculptor who has worked and trained in Italy. He teaches in New York City and is the director of Tuscany Study, a summer art program in Italy.
“It harkens to the earliest days of the region’s stone industry,” Shaheen said of the design in the statement announcing the project. “The carving will symbolically highlight the Rutland region’s deep artistic roots and the ongoing rebirth of the city.”
Italian artisans will join Shaheen at the studio in West Rutland to carve the stone. The sculpture is set to be done in September and installed downtown in October.
“This one really is an opportunity to utilize some of the talent that we have at the studio,” Driscoll said, “to create something that is really relevant to Rutland.”
A specific site for the sculpture has not been chosen. Costello said he is working with city officials to find the right location.
The sculpture’s cost is about $50,000, he added, including in-kind donations such as the stone. Green Mountain Power, Costello said, is paying up to about $25,000 for the sculpture, with Foley’s company to pick up the remainder, minus the in-kind donations.
The sculpture, Costello said, is a continuation of GMP’s Rutland Blooms campaign, which aims to beautify the city by planting flowers and trees.
Ideas for future historic figures to be carved in stone or bronze and installed downtown include John Deere, a Rutland native and plow inventor.
Vermonters such as artist Norman Rockwell, Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys, and social activist and author Dorothy Canfield Fisher are also on the list.
“I can’t wait to get started,” Costello said.
