A new sculpture on the Mendenhall Valley Public Library lawn is the product of an old friendship.
A Juneau man commissioned and donated the artist’s 250-pound, stainless steel sculpture.
“The Librarian” is a representation of a woman standing and reading a book. The sixth of its kind, it’s likely the last for the 80-year-old artist from Ohio.
Listen to the two old friends explain how meeting seven decades ago in India eventually led to Juneau’s new public art.
The audio story features a Creative Commons track called “Upbeat” by Jon Luc Hefferman.
Jim Havens and Fred Koken met as schoolchildren in 1954 at a boarding school in northern India. Their fathers were working in construction on a dam project at the time.
They kept in touch over the years.
Koken moved to Juneau in 1970 to work in the financial industry. He retired in 1998 and still lives here.
Havens became a metal sculptor and lives in Woodville, Ohio.
Koken visited a few years ago and saw a version of “The Librarian” in Havens’ foundry.
“As soon as I saw it, it wasn’t even a thinking process — it just bloomed in my mind that that would be a wonderful thing to have in our new library out in the Mendenhall Valley,” Koken said. “It just seemed like a natural thing.”
Koken commissioned one for Juneau.
Havens said stainless steel is very hard to work with, but is very durable and expects the sculpture will last for hundreds of years.
“Starts out as flat metal,” he said. “A lot of it is bending, shaping, and welding and cutting, finishing, a lot of sanding, grinding, texturing — trying to get exactly what you want on it.”
Havens noted that it reflects the environment around it.
“If the sun is shining and the grass is nice and green, that green comes up the stainless steel, reflects the green, the whole of the stainless steel will be green,” he said. “If the sun is on it, it will be yellow. If the sky is blue, the stainless will pick up the color blue.”
This is the sixth Librarian sculpture he’s made. Two are at libraries in Michigan, two in Indiana and one in Los Angeles.
He said Juneau’s was made especially for Koken and that he’s very pleased to be part of the community.
Havens said he hopes library patrons appreciate it and the library as a place for learning and bettering themselves.
“I hope mostly that it just looks nice and that they like it and say, ‘Gee, that’s kind of pretty,'” Havens said. “I hope that they come away with an appreciation for sculpture as an art, and they be happy with it.”
