PITTSTON, LUZERNE CO. (WOLF) \u2014 As the annual Pittston Tomato Festival kicked off, the city unveiled a new 16-foot public sculpture Thursday, adding another permanent piece to the city\u2019s downtown art collection.<\/p>\n
The sculpture, titled \u201cSay Something,\u201d was inspired by the 1989 film \u201cSay Anything,\u201d starring John Cusack. The piece depicts a large robot holding a boombox overhead, a reference to the film\u2019s iconic scene in which Cusack\u2019s character, Lloyd Dobler, stands outside the home of Diane Court (Ione Skye) holding a boombox over his head in a dramatic romantic gesture.<\/p>\n
Scott Nichols, sculpture artist, said the project began with a concept from Pittston Mayor Michael Lombardo, who considers \u201cSay Anything\u201d one of his favorite movies. Nichols then developed the idea into the finished piece.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it all started from just a pen sketch from the mayor. Then I took that home and started sketching it out on my shop floor, getting the proportions and the size right. I knew it was going to be massive. I didn\u2019t know it was going to be this big until we really got going with it,\u201d said Nichols.<\/p>\n
Nichols said the sculpture took about a year to complete on and off. He built the chest and head in his shop before bringing those sections to fellow metal fabricator Chris Daniels\u2019 shop, where the two designed and built the legs, arms and boombox.<\/p>\n
Daniels also helped strengthen the sculpture\u2019s internal structure, including the supports needed to hold the large boombox. Nichols said the completed piece was assembled in sections, and its installation marked the first time he had seen the entire sculpture together.<\/p>\n
The sculpture measures 16 feet from its feet to the top of the boombox, making the robot the largest sculpture Nichols had built to date. Nichols had previously created a 13-foot guitar sculpture in Pittston that was unveiled during the 2023 Tomato Festival.<\/p>\n
Much of the sculpture was created from reclaimed and repurposed materials, including motorcycle parts, gears, sprockets, springs and large rims. Nichols also incorporated references to Pittston and the Tomato Festival throughout the design, including tomato details on the sculpture and its boombox.<\/p>\n
A digital message board built into the boombox gives the sculpture a practical purpose in addition to its visual design. The city plans to use the display for informational messages, upcoming events and other community notices.<\/p>\n
Lombardo said public art has become one of the cornerstones of the city\u2019s downtown development over the past decade, with new pieces added as part of an ongoing effort to make the area more vibrant and engaging.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever we bring art pieces into the city, one of the considerations is obviously its form, right? So it\u2019s a beautiful sculptural piece, but when we can weave function into it, we\u2019re able to get another purpose out of it. In this case, we get the message board. So it\u2019s a form-and-function piece,\u201d said Lombardo.<\/p>\n
The sculpture is now open to any visitors throughout the Tomato Festival. The piece will remain permanently in the lower festival lot across from 70 S. Main St.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSTON, LUZERNE CO. (WOLF) \u2014 As the annual Pittston Tomato Festival kicked off, the city unveiled a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-269534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}