Fairfield Central Park statue sent for repairs

FAIRFIELD — The bronze statue of a little boy in Fairfield’s Central Park has been sent in for repairs after one of its fingers was broken off, most likely sometime last year.

Suzan Kessel of the Fairfield Art Association, which commissioned the artwork, said she thinks the vandalism occurred at least a year ago based on available photographs of the statue taken in 2020. The statue depicts a little boy wearing a baseball cap talking to an old man, William Coop, the first European settler born in the county. The two are sitting on a bench near the Ron Prill Bandstand.

In late April, the statue of the boy was sent to Max-Cast Inc. in Kalona for repairs. An employee at the company said a replacement bronze finger has been created, though the employee didn’t know how soon it could be welded back onto the statue, or how soon it would be returned to Fairfield.

Kessel said it was very disappointing to learn the statue was vandalized.

“Whoever did it can’t respect how much time and money went into the project,” Kessel said.

The statue of the boy and the old man were the handiwork of Chris Bennett. Installed in 1981, they were the first of a number of other statues Bennett has done around town. Bennett later crafted the statue of the children playing leapfrog outside the Carnegie Historical Museum, a memorial at the Fairfield High School dedicated to a girl killed in a car accident, and most recently the statue of Lee Gobble outside the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center.

Kessel recalls that, after Bennett did his first statue, he went into the schools to do programs with their art classes. There was a contest to pick out a boy whom the statue would be modeled on, and the same thing was done with the children playing leapfrog.

“We tried to involve the youth so they’d get an appreciation of these pieces,” Kessel said.

This is not the first time the statue of the little boy has been damaged. Kessel said the boy’s hand was broken off some years ago, likely accidentally by a snowplow, and that the hand was recovered and reattached.

Bennett said that vandalism of his public art pieces “goes with the territory.” He said sometimes the vandalism is not intentional, and that sometimes the public is just being too rough with the statues, and that they damage them accidentally. He’s not sure if that’s the case here.

“I think someone was being too physical with it and hasn’t owned up to it,” he said.