The latest project is the restoration of a granite sculpture of two hippos beloved in the little village of Brookfield, Vermont. They stand next to Brookfield’s famous ‘Floating Bridge’ in a very popular park overlooking picturesque Sunset Lake.
It is the earliest stone sculpture by renowned artist Jim Sardonis created in 1981. Here is a short video of Jim sculpting them.
And here’s more about Jim:
In 2024 they split apart! A thin fissure in the stone which Jim noticed in the original granite block, but judged too small to ever be a problem, finally gave way to age and weather. The sculpture suddenly had a 1” crack.
I filled it with concrete, textured the surface to match the surrounding granite, and colored it with silicate pigments to match the surrounding granite. I used the same pigments recently for the restoration project of Vermont’s national treasure 'Sculpture on the Highway’.
The next year the crack returned and this time even wider pointing to a new problem. First, it was a stone fissure. Now it was the foundation.
I informed Betty Lord, local resident, and benevolent overseer of the hippos and Hippo Park. I explained that further filling of the crack would be for nought since the sculpture was likely to keep settling on its old foundation of sauna tubes. The hippos needed a new foundation, and that required a thick concrete or stone slab, and lifting the 4 ton sculpture onto its new foundation – about a $10,000 project. I would remain pro bono to oversee the project and carry out the final step of filling the crack and making it disappear.
Betty quickly got to work raising the funds. Meanwhile another resident, retired from the local Dept. of Pubic Works, volunteered to fabricate a 10” thick reinforced concrete slab, perfect for the weight of the hippos. He also volunteered to place it in the park at ground level so we could eventually cover it with crushed stone. That reduced the cost to 7K. the funds were soon raised and restoration began.
Related Projects:
- Restoration of Maya Lin Sculptures in Istanbul
- Dusting the Largest Wood Buddha in the World
- Sculpture Restoration in London
- Graffiti Removal in Vermont
- Fountain Restoration in Lisbon
- Restoring a Priceless Artwork in the Philippines
The exceptional folks at the Granite Corp of Barre (GCB) with generations of experience moving art and monuments lifted the sculpture, placed it on its new foundation, and secured it with stone shims and epoxy around the base. Jim went to work smoothing a
couple of granite edges that didn’t quite line up after GCB squeezed the two immense pieces of broken stone together using straps.
Mat Calcagni (operating the crane), Ethan Codling, and Nick Kilkenny of GCB
The sculptor Jim Sardonis at work
Just a thin crack remained which I filled with epoxy. I slighty darkened the epoxy as I mixed its two parts to better match the off-white of the ‘Barre Gray’ granite originally quarried from my home town of Barre, VT.
Jim and I surrounded the sculpture with crushed stone. And another voluteer pressure washed the hippos with water and applied an acid bath that removed stains and brightened the granite.
Bob and Jim at work
Finally, with the cleanest color of the hippos achieved I went to work matching the texture and color of the epoxy that filled the crack with the surrounding granite – essentially trying to make the crack disappear. A neighbor donated their outdoor spigot and electricity for the 2-day project. Jim donated the gravel, and I donated the border.
The hippos had a nice dip in the pond when floodwaters rose on July 10, 2024!
