Sculptures added to nearly complete Slack Plaza

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - Three new sculptures have a home at Slack Plaza. Two sculptures are 16-feet tall, one playing the banjo and the other playing a fiddle. The third is a smaller dog next to the banjo player.

Sculptor James Simon said he worked to make sure these statues are a true representation of what it means to be from the region.

“They’re created in clay first, and then we make plaster molds, and then they’re cast in concrete,” Simon said. It’s a pretty complex, long process that takes about four months per sculpture.

Simon is a sculptor out of Pittsburgh and has made large sculptures for around 25 years.

He said he made a connection to West Virginia through music, which helped him develop the pieces.

“I like Appalachian music quite a bit and I listened to a lot of it, was making these, which is how I get excited to create the themes and the feel and the look of each sculpture,” Simon said.

These pieces are part of the roughly $3 million investment into crafting Slack Plaza.

Jeff Pierson, director of the Office of Public Art, said this is just the start of many new art projects coming to Charleston.

“People walking by, it would be an aha moment, like, wow, what is that?” Pierson said.

The plaza is set to open at the end of January -- a little later than hoped for.

Charleston City Manager Jonathan Storage says the original end-of-the-year goal was pushed back due to things out of their control.

“Because of material delays and supply chain issues, some of our key materials were delayed getting to us, and some are still on our waiting list,” Storage said.

While the plaza isn’t open, if you’re walking down Summers Street, you can still check out the sculptures.

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