Sardonis Sculpts New Work For Native American Tribe

"Almost everything I do is based on natural forms," Randolph sculptor Jim Sardonis says.

Of course, people familiar with Sardonis's famous whales' tails, his panther family which guards the Braintree meeting house, or his owl family at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, already know this.

True to form, Sardonis's lastest piece is a pair of hawks installed in July in Greenville, Me., in honor of Henry Thoreau and the Wabanaki Indian tribes.

The piece was dedicated on July 23- exactly 150 years to the day after Thoreau and his
Penobscot guide left Greenville by birch bark canoe on the last of his three trips through the Maine wilderness. Thoreau chronicled the trips in his book, "The Maine Woods."

Sardonis won the commission in a national competition, although the final work turned out significantly different from his original proposal- which was a grouping of owls. It turned out that owls are not a good symbol for the Penobscot tribe, and so the committee asked Sardonis to change the sculpture to be hawks or eagles.

"It was difficult because I had already carved a lot of stone away from the head, so I had to re-imagine the whole thing. It's a good thing that owls have large heads," Sardonis said.

The final piece is ten feet tall and weighs about seven tons. The birds and pillar are carved from one piece of granite, and the work is inscribed with quotations from Thoreau, as well as quotations in the Penobscot language.

Entitled "Birds of a Feather," the pair of hawks symbolize the camaraderie of Thoreau and the Native American guide, Sardonis said.

Interestingly, one of Sardonis' versions of the owls is on display at Studio Place Arts on Main Street in Barre, and was recently featured in a photo in the Boston Globe. The "Owl Family" is a part of a show that will be up until this Saturday, Nov. 10.

Sardonis said he's working on plans for a polar bear sculpture for a library in Andover, Mass, which he hopes will raise awareness of global warming.

"I try to find ways to use what I do to help with environmental issues," Sardonis said.