Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/12/2019 Page 2
The Telegraph has been a great supporter and they really express exactly what we want to express; that these
sculptures are accessible. They all are in public places and they are created specifically for you to be able to
access them, to go up to them, to touch them, to feel them, to climb on them, that’s really the purpose.
It is art as part of everyday living, instead of having to go to a museum or an art gallery to see art and to
experience art, it is in your neighborhoods, it is at your schools, it is at the Fire Station, it is behind City Hall.
Everywhere you go, hopefully, you will be able to experience these sculptures. So it really surrounds you in
Nashua.
Sometimes on occasion some of, once in a while one of our sculptures gets to be a little too accessible, like this
sculpture that was installed at Legacy Park this past spring. My husband and | went by the day after it was
installed, on our way to dinner, and there were kids up on the top over 14 feet high. So we knew that that was
really not going to fly with everybody. So we had to move that sculpture, we moved it over by Exit 5, right at the
entry way when you come off the Everett Turnpike and it is absolutely a gorgeous location for it and it is still
accessible but it is a little less enticing for that age group.
So let’s get down to the nuts and bolts; there’s a lot of pieces to the Symposium whether it is host families or
food or the web site or tours. There are many, many pieces to it. Just about all of those pieces depend on the
community. The bottom line is that the Symposium only exists because of the tremendous involvement of
individuals, businesses and organizations.
People like Karen Goddard who has hosted several sculptors over the years including Tony Jimenez from Costa
Rica. We have people volunteer to bring lunches and dinners throughout the 3 weeks for the sculptors as they
work at the work site; we never have hungry sculptors. People like Ansel Grandmaison who since the
beginning, since 2008 has lent a hand, has helped to move the sculptures from the work site to their permanent
location. We could not do this without Ansel and his truck and his crane. Every once in a while a sculpture is
too big for Ansel’s equipment, so when asked — this one was really funny actually — because as he tried to pick it
up the whole truck was going down instead of the stone going up. So this is “Speaking Bush” by Asta
Vasillaukaite from Lithuania; you notice | have to know how to pronounce all of these names. Some of these
names are pretty big names. And it weighs about 5 tons, so Kinney Towing came in with their incredible
equipment and moved this sculpture that year. These are all people from the community, we call, we say, “We
really need your help” and they come and they donate that time. We have more in-kind services, the value of in-
kind services is higher than our budget.
So this past spring, Ansel’s equipment wasn’t working right so he called Chasse Crane over in Hudson. Chasse
Crane came over and brought over this crane and | have to look at my notes because | want to make sure | get
the numbers right. Everyone was blown away by this incredible crane that can handle 175 tons. Our largest
sculpture is about 6 tons. So this crane can extend 307 feet in the air. This is already small, but if you really
look closely you will see “Bird Dreaming” which is the one at Bicentennial Park, right here in the middle just
absolutely, you can hardly see it with the crane.
We have people like Mayor Jim Donchess and Chamber President Tracy Hall, seen here welcoming the
sculptors at the opening reception and they provide valuable resources to the Symposium. We are grateful to
places like Hunt Community who hosted us for the opening celebration in 2019 and will be doing so again in
2020. We are extremely excited about that and their beautiful soace. Bronze Craft is one of the companies who
have contributed to the Symposium and this is actually an interesting story. Luben Boykov from Bulgaria was
here in 2009 and he created this sculpture “Encounter” at Rotary Common, it is the one with the 2 figures with
the hands almost touching. It is an interesting story about how that was created. What he did was he collected
9 twigs from Nashua and he created a mold and then he went over to Bronze Craft who poured over 800 bronze
twigs from that mold.
