Jamie Darrell Lester (/ˈlstər/; born September 7, 1974) is an American artist best known for creating ceramic, bronze, and steel sculptures that “focus on the human figure combined with imagery derived primarily from life in Appalachia, including birds, architecture, and landscape.”"WV ARTIST ON DISPLAY: JAMIE LESTER, WEST VIRGINIA SCULPTOR." ''Hashtag West Virginia.'' https://hashtagwv.com/2021/11/wv-artist-on-display-jamie-lester-west-virginia-sculptor (accessed 12/10/2021) Lester also creates paintings, digital art, and music.

Sculpture

Lester's award-winning sculptures have been shown in galleries in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

, and the United Kingdom. Many of his sculptures have been produced as commissioned public works, including statues of actor

Don Knotts Jesse Donald Knotts (July 21, 1924February 24, 2006) was an American actor and comedian. He is widely known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on ''The Andy Griffith Show'', a 1960s sitcom for which he earned five Emmy Awards. He also ...

(along High Street in front of the Metropolitan Theatre in

Morgantown, WV Morgantown is a city in and the county seat of Monongalia County, West Virginia, Monongalia County, West Virginia, United States, situated along the Monongahela River. The largest city in North-Central West Virginia, Morgantown is best known as th ...

, 2016),Nichols, Cliff (18 Oct 2016). “Against the Odds: Morgantown sculptor Jamie Lester portrays the man, Don Knotts, over characters he played,” ''Fairmont Times West Virginian.'' https://www.timeswv.com/news/against-the-odds-morgantown-sculptor-jamie-lester-portrays-the-man-don-knotts-over-characters-he/article_5d54a690-94ea-11e6-a8a5-cb6bd7e18415.html (accessed 12/03/2021) basketball player and executive

Jerry West Jerome Alan West (born May 28, 1938) is an American basketball executive and former player. He played professionally for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). His nicknames included "Mr. Clutch", for his ability ...

(outside the West Virginia University Coliseum, Morgantown, WV, 2007), George Steinbrenner in

Monument Park (Yankee Stadium) Monument Park is an open-air museum located in Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York City. It contains a collection of monuments, plaques, and retired numbers honoring distinguished members of the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball. The ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance at

MCU Park Maimonides Park (formerly MCU Park and KeySpan Park) is a minor league baseball stadium on the Riegelmann Boardwalk in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City. The home team and primary tenant is the New York Mets-affiliated Brooklyn Cyclones of ...

in the

Coney Island Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, Manhattan Beach to its east, L ...

neighborhood of

Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn () is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county i ...

. In 2003, Lester designed the obverse side of the

state quarter issued as part of the

US Mint The United States Mint is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury responsible for producing coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce, as well as controlling the movement of bullion. It does not produce paper money; tha ...

's 50 State quarters program in 2005. The design features the

New River Gorge Bridge The New River Gorge Bridge is a steel arch bridge long over the New River Gorge near Fayetteville, West Virginia, in the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. With an arch long, the New River Gorge Bridge was the world's longest si ...

.Staff Writer (22 Aug 2021). "Lester featured at Old Stone Room Gallery." The Register Herald. (accessed 12/10/2021 Each year, Lester creates bronze-relief busts representing new inductees to the

World Golf Hall of Fame The World Golf Hall of Fame is located at World Golf Village near St. Augustine, Florida, in the United States, and it is unusual among sports halls of fame in that a single site honors both men and women. It is supported by a consortium of 26 go ...

St. Augustine, Florida St. Augustine ( ; es, San Agustín ) is a city in the Southeastern United States and the county seat of St. Johns County on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabit ...

. As of August 2021, Lester had also created over 30 statues for the

Boy Scouts of America The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded i ...

, each of which are installed at the

Summit Bechtel Reserve The Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve, often shortened as Summit Bechtel Reserve (SBR), located in Fayette and Raleigh counties, near Beckley, West Virginia, is one of four facilities managed by the National Council of the Boy Scout ...

, near

Beckley, WV Beckley is a city in and the county seat of Raleigh County, West Virginia, United States. It was founded on April 4, 1838. This city is the home of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology or West Virginia University, Beckley Campus. ...

. Among these is a statue of

Rex Tillerson Rex Wayne Tillerson (born March 23, 1952) is an American engineer and energy executive who served as the 69th U.S. secretary of state from February 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, under President Donald Trump. Prior to joining the Trump administ ...

, the former

United States Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...

who served as President of the

from 2010 to 2012. In July 2023, the

announced the unveiling and dedication of Lester's bronze "Ascending Eagle" statue as part of Scouting's ''Women of Character Program'', which ran concurrent with their 2023 National Jamboree. The 8-feet-tall statue located at the

is intended to inspire past, current and future generations of girls and women involved in Scouting. Other recent works include "Rising Cardinals" (2021), which is located between Neville and North Heber Streets in

. This sculpture was part of a beautification project for the city. It features four red cardinals and was constructed with the help of Lester's business partner, engineer Jeff Edwards. During an interview conducted during the public unveiling of the work, Lester said he chose the state bird of West Virginia to symbolize Beckley “rising up.” In an interview with

Tamarack ''Larix laricina'', commonly known as the tamarack, hackmatack, eastern larch, black larch, red larch, or American larch, is a species of larch native to Canada, from eastern Yukon and Inuvik, Northwest Territories east to Newfoundland, and als ...

, Lester revealed that he not only sculpts in bronze, ceramics, steel, and mixed media, but also creates sculpture digitally and in virtual reality. His larger projects can take several years to complete. For example, Lester stated that he worked over 4,000 hours to create his rendering of

, while planning for his

statue began nearly ten years before the final version was erected. Lester has stated that his artistic style is influenced by

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

post-impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

, and

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

Painting

Lester is also an accomplished

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

whose works sometimes combine his figurative representations with Appalachian themes. For example, Lester created a series of

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

paintings showing the faces of

coal miners People have worked as coal miners for centuries, but they became increasingly important during the Industrial revolution when coal was burnt on a large scale to fuel stationary and locomotive engines and heat buildings. Owing to coal's strategic ro ...

wearing miner's helmets, which was utilized in the non-profit public awareness campaign "Remember the Miners" that launched in 2010. A watercolor series Lester created in 2005 features giantized people amid Appalachian architecture.

Early life and education

Born into a working-class family in

Oceana, West Virginia Oceana is a town in Wyoming County, West Virginia. The population was 1,462 at the time of the 2020 census. Oceana is the oldest city in Wyoming County and was the county seat until 1907. Oceana was the eponym of the film Oxyana. The town has a t ...

, Lester began creating art at the age of three, due to the influence of his mother, a watercolor painter, and his father, a

coal miner Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use c ...

who introduced to him to

whittling Whittling may refer either to the art of carving shapes out of raw wood using a knife or a time-occupying, non-artistic (contrast wood carving for artistic process) process of repeatedly shaving slivers from a piece of wood. It is used by many as ...

and fort building. Whittling and fort building, Lester explains, are "kind of sculptures."Julian, Norman (2018) "Artist Jamie Lester," Goldseal Magazine, Vol.44, Issue 2, pg. 56. Listed at Goldenseal Index: https://archive.wvculture.org/goldenseal/2018index.html (accessed 12/10/2021). Reproduced at https://archive.wvculture.org/goldenseal/summer18/JamieLester.html (accessed 12/10/2021) Lester later attended

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, Potomac State College ...

and graduated with

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...

degree in 1997. He has continued his education by studying specific artists and styles. In 2015, Lester traveled to

Rome, Italy , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (Romulus and Remus, legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg ...

, where he completed a course of study on the figurative sculpture of

Gian Lorenzo Bernini Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (, , ; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 159828 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his ...

. In 2011, he travelled to China, where he taught as a guest artist at the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute. He also studied in the Chinese city of

Hangzhou Hangzhou ( or , ; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), also romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang, China. It is located in the northwestern part of the province, sitting at the head of Hangzhou Bay, whi ...

."Jamie Lester: Monongalia County, Sculpture." ''Tamarack Foundation for the Arts.'' https://tamarackfoundation.org/directorylisting/jamie-lester/ (accessed 12/10/2021

Vandalia Bronze and Love Hope Center for the Arts

After graduating from

in 1997, Lester founded Vandalia Bronze in

. Aside from operating as Lester's workshop, Vandalia Bronze hosts the Nampara Arts Cooperative, which provides rentable space to ceramic artists, including equipment and kilns, and public instruction. In 2021, Lester co-founded the Love Hope Center for the Arts, a non-profit educational space in Fayetteville, WV.Skeldon, Katherine (01 May 2021). "Fayetteville welcomes new art center." ''WOAY-ABC TV''. https://woay.com/fayetteville-welcomes-new-art-center/ (accessed 12/11/2021)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lester, Jamie 21st-century American sculptors 1974 births Living people People from Wyoming County, West Virginia Sculptors from West Virginia