A winning sculpture “sketch” was chosen by The Lighthouse Preservation Society for it’s proposed First Guardians statue, to be displayed on the Newburyport, Massachusetts waterfront, commemorating the birthplace of the U.S. Coast Guard. The Society had launched a sculpture contest in 2014, in which we paid 4 area sculptors approximately $20,000 – with funds we’ve raised through our romantic dining program at the top of the Newburyport Rear Range Light – to create a rough first draft “sketch” of their vision for the statue.
That contest came to a conclusion in 2016, and we ended up with a winner – sculptor Michael Keropian’s vision of three uniformed representatives, from each of the three founding federal agencies that merged to become the modern U.S. Coast Guard: The U.S. Lifesaving Service, the Revenue Cutter Service, and the U.S. Lighthouse Service.
Our next step is to get a much more refined and finished “third scale” model done, which would measure approximately two feet high. (Note: the winning sculpture sketch that is depicted in this newsletter is not exactly what the finished third scale model will actually look like. A number of important changes will be made, including taking the men out of the boat and putting them in the surf, mobilizing for a beach rescue).
The finished “third scale” miniature statue will then be enlarged into a full-size bronze statue at a foundry, and placed on the Newburyport waterfront on a four-sided granite pedestal with bronze bas-relief images of the first Revenue Cutter ship Massachusetts, (built in Newburyport), the Newburyport Harbor Light, and the Plum Island Lifesaving Station, as well as descriptive text, describing the history of the three founding agencies.
At this point, we are seeking funds to cover the second phase of this project, which is the completion of a finished, refined, and reproducible “third scale” working model.
