Finally, a cool sculpture for Victory Park 

I occasionally commune with the spirit of the old Victory Park totem pole, which was removed in 1999, and it always asks, “When will those guys at the City of Stockton get off their fat behinds and replace me?”

Good question. The prominent knoll where the beloved totem pole stood from the 1930s has been vacant for — hard to believe — 25 years. Now, at long last, installation of a new sculpture is at hand.

“I think we’re two weeks out,” said sculptor James Moore. “I am very excited. Also a little nervous.”

Moore has created “Community Connection,” a 14-foot-high metal sculpture of three semi-abstract human figures holding aloft connected cubes. The sculpture’s concrete base was poured on Monday.

A contractor today is trenching wire to the site to power the colored lights that will illuminate the sculpture by night. When a city inspector signs off, the sculpture will be transported from a Richmond fabrication shop, installed, and unveiled at a public ceremony.

“We are definitely planning to invite the public, Council, the artist, and various speakers,” said Stockton Community Service Director Kris Farro. “Refreshments will be served. Also, fun and games in the park, a family event.”

Farro can’t commit to an exact date. Stockton municipal projects have a way of incurring unforeseen delays. The Waterfront Towers City Hall project is years behind. Construction on the Northeast Library Branch screeched to a grinding halt amid litigation. “Community Connection” was supposed to be unveiled a year ago. 

Those inclined to supernatural beliefs may attribute the sculpture’s delay to a curse, perhaps by the totem pole, which is peeved that the city did not better protect it from the termites that caused its demise. But the real explanation is mundane.

“I recently moved to Stockton,” Moore said, “and essentially lost access to my normal people, the fabricator and contractors. So, I had to start from scratch to rebuild that team. The first contractor I signed up to do the installation, oh, my God … I had just an incredible amount of difficulty working with this guy. So eventually I had to fire him.”

Moore anticipates that his sculpture will give people a two-stage response, the first being visceral.  

“The initial response I want people to have is one of joy and happiness,” he said. “I want them to look at the piece and feel uplifted. Without knowing anything about contemporary sculpture, I want them  — from 2 to 102  — to look at it and smile.”

But then, “The abstract nature of the work creates a space for them to fill in their own experiences. Overlay what community and connection means to them. That’s my hope.”

Moore was raised in Carruthers, a speck in the heartland south of Fresno. Around age 14, he happened upon a sawed-off walnut branch on which he divined a face. He used a hammer and chisel to detail the face: the birth of a sculptor.

He moved to Oakland and studied, influenced by the generalized human forms of British sculptor Henry Moore, the accessible Angeleno Isamu Noguchi, the primordial Stephen De Staebler. 

A couple dozen sculptures by James Moore stand in civic plazas, parks, hospitals, and corporate headquarters, mostly in the Bay Area.

Costing $175,000, “Community Connection” is made of brushed stainless steel, and painted in primary automobile paint colors. It is built to last — a durability Stockton Yahoos are certain to test.

“What I love about the sculpture is the vibrancy and the solidity,” Farro said. “Those figures look strong and fierce and confidently looking forward. I think that’s so true not only of the neighborhood but the city of Stockton.”

She expanded: “I just think (this) neighborhood is such an important historical place, also looking forward, with the new pool coming on board, and that artwork at the firehouse (The Fallen Firefighters Memorial at Company 6 across the park), that neighborhood is having a rebirth, and that’s a microcosm of what’s happening in the city.”

For a quarter century, that knoll has sat empty like a pedestal that holds no artwork. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there was no there there. Now there will be.

Michael Fitzgerald’s column runs on Wednesdays. On Twitter and Instagram as Stocktonopolis. Email: mfitzgeraldstockton@gmail.com