A Statue For Fenton; “The Game”

The town I grew up in was in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Sault Ste Marie.  It was a cute town that had some of the friendliest people.  I left that town after high school and furthered my education at Central Michigan University 25 years ago, but who’s counting?  After I met my husband we landed in his hometown called Fenton.  The first time I drove through town I felt like I was back home.  It was quaint and friendly and I had always hoped to raise a family in a community such as Fenton. To this day, I am still proud to call it home.

Over two years ago Phil and I made the decision to have a commissioned piece of art for Fenton.  We wanted something that had personal significance and hoped that others would value it as well.  We knew art was the best way to honor the history of our small town.  The sculpture was a way of documenting history and could tell the story of a community and its leaders.  We decided that the statue was about the infamous “Game”.  Fenton was named by a “literal turn of the card”.  William Fenton had the winning hand in a poker game and earned the right to name the city on August 24th, 1837.  Robert Leroy and Benjamin Rockwell were among the other players and the three men continued to play to name the main streets in the village.

During the process of making this statue for the community we had our employee and friend, Jenny, find us a foundry.  She did a fantastic job and found The Fine Arts Sculpture Centre in Clarkson.  We met with the owner, Ben Cassell, over 2 years ago and talked to him about what we were envisioning.   Phil and I agreed that Oleg Kedria, an award-winning artist from Ukraine, was a good fit for us.  Oleg won at ArtPrize the previous year and he had done work for President Putin.  Oleg’s style was impressive and so we began the process of moving forward.  Jenny then assisted Oleg with the historical research of the sculpture.  It was a very labor-intensive project.  It is comprised of over 125 individual pieces and is life size.  The details are phenomenal and remarkable.  Even down to the coins and the Jack Daniel’s bottle was from that era.  Oleg put a lot of work into this masterpiece.

We had the unveiling on October 5th of this year.  It was a fantastic time to see the excitement from so many people.  There was also a fundraiser that brought in almost $15K for youth art in the Fenton Community.  So cool!  The piece is appraised at $750K-$1Million from the Fine Arts Centre.  However, we paid one sixth to have it made.  We gifted it to the city and are so happy people are enjoying the sculpture of “The Game”.