ERVING — Local sculptor Jon Bander’s larger-than-life great blue heron has roosted at Riverfront Park after three months of welding, eliciting a well-attended celebration on Tuesday evening.
The sculpture stands 6.5 feet tall and is made predominantly out of repurposed steel objects, which glistened majestically in the evening sun throughout the ceremony. The project was commissioned by Erving with help from a $10,000 grant from FirstLight Hydro Generating Co., who donated to promote “ecological resilience and interpersonal resilience,” according to Assistant Town Planner Mariah Kurtz.
Tuesday’s celebration drew locals and officials from various town departments to Riverfront Park. Refreshments and live music from Bad News Jazz and Blues set a joyous mood as residents’ eyes explored the intricacies of the metal bird’s plumage. Standing beside the sculpture, Kurtz opened the evening with a speech, beginning by echoing FirstLight’s sentiment.
“When I submitted our application for a sculpture project, I knew that our project should touch on several themes, one of them being climate change,” she said. “Humans are significantly altering the way the Earth functions and it’s having a profound impact on our environment and how we live our lives, and we’ve seen that already in Erving.”
Kurtz continued by acknowledging the sculpture’s relevance to the community’s past and present.
“The incorporation of reclaimed industrial materials nods to Erving’s history as a mill town,” Kurtz noted, “while also acknowledging that we produce and consume many material goods (that) are forgotten about once no longer in use.”
After thanking Bander and others who made the project possible, Kurtz invited members of the Selectboard to speak. Member Scott Bastarache stepped forward first, saying the sculpture is “amazing and speaks for itself.” He then gave credit to Kurtz, who facilitated the project.
“We give Mariah the credit,” Bastarache said. “We did give her free reign and said, ‘Please just make it something that is endearing to this town and that we will enjoy forever,’ and I think she nailed this one.”
Selectboard member William Bembury praised the sculpture as not only pertinent to Erving, but to the greater region.
“We have a beautiful sculpture of a great blue heron, which historically, is New England,” he said. “You can’t get any better than that.”
Carter Wall, FirstLight’s manager of government affairs and community relations, then expressed her company’s enthusiasm in having contributed to the project.
“This is so cool,” she said. “We thought of this municipal grant program as a way to thank our communities where we operate for everything that they do for us.”
She continued by recalling her personal investment in the construction process. With help from Wall, Bander had gathered metal from the scrap “boneyard” at FirstLight’s Northfield Mountain hydroelectric facility for use in the sculpture. Bander challenged himself to use a variety of these discarded parts, such as metal hosing he used along the bird’s neck.
“One of my favorite things that I’ve done in the last year is going dumpster diving with Jon,” Wall said.
Bander, a Turners Falls native who has spent the last five years sculpturally welding for clients across the country under the moniker “Notorious Weld,” said this project’s proximity to his roots made it particularly fulfilling.
“It’s really nice to have a piece that’s so close to home,” he told dozens in attendance. “A lot of my work is farther away at the moment and it’s really good to give back to the community.”
Previously, Bander said he had worked between six and 12 hours “almost every day” since beginning the welding process on May 18, not counting the time he spent conceptualizing things or negotiating with others to acquire materials. He said he finished the sculpture on Aug. 11, which was bittersweet.
“I’m happy that it’s done,” he said, “but I enjoyed working on it so much that I didn’t want to finish it, in a way.”
Reach Julian Mendoza
at 413-772-0261, ext. 261 or jmendoza@recorder.com.