The fifth annual Gloucester Arts Festival kicked off its month of events with the Main Street Sculpture Unveiling and Talk by Artist Jay Lagemann last Friday night. The outdoor unveiling was originally scheduled for June 3, but the event had to be rescheduled for the following night due to inclement weather.

Attendees met at the front of Arts on Main at 6:30 Friday night where sculptor Lagemann began to tell the story behind his “The Bond” sculpture. He led his audience on a hunt of his sculptures along Main Street in Gloucester Village and told the stories behind each of his pieces, which included “Speedo,” “Reading Dog,” “Story Time,” “Pawstand Dog,” “Blue Fisherman,” “Pipe Fisherman,” “Jitterbug Dancers” and “Pawshake Dog.”

One of the most notable sculptures on the tour was “Swinging Jenny.”

“I have been playing with this image for 30 years now,” Lageman wrote in the description of the piece. “I made the first Swinging Jenny in 1991 out of chenille sticks and gave it to my daughter Jenny in memory of the fun we had playing together. Even though I call the sculpture Swinging Jenny it is not a portrait of me swinging Jenny. Because it is abstract when people look at the sculpture they see a child being swung and almost invariably put themselves into the action. They remember being swung by their parents or grandparents or else swinging their child or grandchild. I was trying to capture the feeling that is universal to any adult swinging a child: the shared excitement, the child’s sense of being out of control and the trust between the two.”

There is a monumental bronze Swinging Jenny on display publicly in New York City. The sculpture is 18×22 feet in that venue.

Lagemann’s sculptures will be on display on Main Street until September. Hunt for the sculptures all summer long. Learn more about each piece by scanning each sculpture’s QR code or by visiting https://gloucesterartsfestival.com/jay-lagemann-sculpture-hunt/.