Vermont is far from the ocean, but it’s famous for its whales. Northbound tourists and Interstate 89 commuters alike are regularly delighted by the sight of two whale tails sticking joyfully into the air, the cetaceans themselves seemingly submerged in a magical marine dimension of South Burlington’s Technology Park.
Though the sculpture seems timeless and, to viewers seeing it from a car, perhaps anonymous, it has a name and an author: “Reverence,” one of many projects created over the past half century by Randolph sculptor Jim Sardonis. That work and others are presented through photographs, maquettes and sculptures in “Natural Forms,” a retrospective exhibition on view through September 13 at Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph.
Sardonis, now 74, grew up in Nashua, N.H., and first encountered sculpture as a teenager at Phillips Exeter Academy. “It looked interesting, so I took it, and just fell in love with it,” Sardonis said. For his senior project, he said, he teamed up with a University of New Hampshire graduate student to build a small foundry and make his first bronzes. One of them, a koala family from 1969, is on view at the Chandler, along with other early works, including a soapstone frog from 1967 — Sardonis’ first stone carving.
The art world of the time was excited about plastics and new materials, Sardonis said. When he went to Oberlin College in Ohio, he thought he might place out of an introductory sculpture class and brought a few of his works to the professor, Royce Dendler (who, coincidentally, now lives in Bethel). “He said, ‘Oh! Stone carving,'” Sardonis recalled. “‘I’ll have to watch you. I’ve never seen that done.'”
After brief experimentation sculpting with foam rubber at Oberlin, Sardonis decided to stick with traditional, direct carving and casting. Since moving to Randolph in 1974, he’s worked mainly in stone and more recently almost exclusively in bronze, which he says is easier on the body.
One such sculpture, “Hearts and Hands,” is presented at various stages in the gallery — a fascinating look into Sardonis’ process. Commissioned by an anonymous donor for the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, the piece honors pandemic health care workers. Two life-size bronze figures sit at opposite ends of a green marble bench, each extending an arm; their hands together make a heart. Like much of Sardonis’ work, it is instantly understandable, effortlessly communicating emotional resonance.
The show includes photos of the finished work installed at the hospital, a small-scale maquette and, arrestingly, the two bronze figures, minus their bench, spanning the gallery. After Sardonis made that piece, another was commissioned for the North Carolina Surgical Hospital in Chapel Hill, N.C.; the figures on view are for the third iteration, which will be installed at a University of Michigan Health network hospital in the spring.
Like real whales, the scale seems impossibly large.
Despite their diverse destinations, the three pieces are entirely local. The benches for the sculptures are made of verde antique marble from Rochester. Sardonis worked with Glenn Campbell at Campbell Plaster & Iron in West Rutland, who enlarged the figures using a pantograph — an ancient tool for transferring points from a scale model to a larger piece. The bronze was cast locally in Randolph by Bob Wright at Custom Castings of Vermont, five minutes from Sardonis’ studio.
The artist’s personal attachment to each piece comes through in his works. Sardonis created “Vermont Family” in 1982, in appreciation of staff at the Gifford Medical Center in Randolph, who helped his own family through a difficult time. To make the sculpture, Sardonis selected the Carrara marble himself in Italy and built the home studio where he still works today. Sculpting the four entwined figures took about nine months; two weeks before its dedication, his wife completed the real-life version by giving birth to their daughter.
That same daughter recently bought a home in Brookfield, Sardonis said, which, amazingly, had been built in the very field where he carved one of his first commissions. A Brookfield business owner initially ordered the sculpture, a mama and baby hippo, for his kids to climb on.
As Sardonis had no studio, his client offered him the field to work in. Sardonis said he thought it would be a good summer project, but it ended up taking three years. The sculpture was eventually moved to what’s now known as “Hippo Park” in Brookfield, where generations of kids have climbed on it. And in his daughter’s yard, Sardonis discovered shards of marble he’d left there 40 years ago.
Like the hippos, all of Sardonis’ works seem to spur connections and attachments with viewers. Many are actual benches, designed to foster respite and communication. Others, such as the hippos, engage children directly — especially “Vigilance,” a family of polar bears at Memorial Hall Library in Andover, Mass., and “Leap of Faith,” a bronze frog at Camp Ta-Kum-Ta in South Hero.
Undoubtedly, though, the most widely felt such public sentiment is for Sardonis’ whale tails. In 1984, the sculpture design was a finalist for a competition at an Alaskan museum, but the project fell through. Later, a friend saw the models Sardonis had made and commissioned him to create the sculpture in granite for a site near I-89’s Randolph exit. They stood there for a decade, until the owner’s financial troubles forced a sale. With some difficulty — each whale tail is about 5 tons, in two pieces held together with rods — “Reverence” was moved to its current site in 1999.
The good people of Randolph, however, missed their whale tails. A group including the Preservation Trust of Vermont and the Vermont Community Foundation purchased the original site and commissioned a new, larger work: “Whale Dance,” which Sardonis completed in 2019. Because the sculpture is bronze rather than stone, Sardonis said, it allowed him to create forms that tip and bend more than those in “Reverence.”
Stopping to see “Whale Dance” is highly recommended as an extension of the show at the Chandler. Like real whales, the scale seems impossibly large, and the view only increases their dramatic effect. “Around here,” Sardonis said, “everyone loves these more than the original ones.” His assertion was borne out by a gallery visitor, who added, “Everybody’s happy to drive by the whales’ tails. They make you feel like you’re home.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Whale of a Tale | A Jim Sardonis sculpture retrospective in Randolph”
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2025.
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