BREA : Lamplighter Statue Joins City Treasures

For 90 second-graders at Fanning Elementary, Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Lamplighter” is no longer just a poem to be recited in class. It has come “alive,” at least in bronze and cement.

On Thursday, they recited the poem once again, but this time, it was during the unveiling of a life-size sculpture of a 19th-Century lamplighter at Brea Gaslight Square, a commercial complex on Imperial Highway.

“We read the poem in school. Now it’s kind of real. I like it,” said Faraz Bala, 8. “It’s very educational.”

The sculpture is the 101st in the city’s Arts in Public Places program, officials said. The program requires all new residential, commercial and industrial developments of $500,000 or more to install a sculpture.

Artwork amassed under the program, which was started in 1975, has grown so much that now the city conducts bus tours to view the sculptures in the east and west side of town, according to Christy Wada, the city’s public arts specialist.

Darwin Manuel, owner of Brea Gaslight Square, said the idea for the lamplighter sculpture came from his wife, Betty, a second-grade teacher at Fanning Elementary.

He said they thought it would be appropriate because the students learn the poem in school and the lamplighter ties in with the name of their property.

“There are few places that has that kind of compatibility,” said artist Robert Steinkamp, 46, who created the lamplighter sculpture.

A Brea resident for the past four years, Steinkamp recently opened a studio at 520 S. Brea Blvd., where he displays and creates paintings, sculptures and conceptual pieces.

Steinkamp said he was paid about $18,000 for the lamplighter sculpture, which took two years to complete and close to another year before it was dedicated.

“The sculpture has a story of its own,” Steinkamp said, adding that the foundry that copied the original plaster model in bronze went bankrupt. He said the American Fine Arts foundry in Burbank took over and finished the job a year ago.

Although the sculpture was installed at its current location last year, the unveiling was delayed because of the ongoing construction at Imperial Highway, Steinkamp said.

Steinkamp may have to do a little tinkering with the sculpture: The second-graders, in their eagerness to see the statue, bent the lamp as they pulled on a rope tied to a tarp that covered the artwork during the unveiling ceremony.

Steinkamp said he will have to reheat the bent part for about 15 minutes to straighten it.

The sculpture is easily visible to motorists along Imperial Highway. Mayor Burnie Dunlap, who was on hand for the unveiling ceremony, said it is another addition to the city’s growing art treasures.

“It adds to what is special about Brea in a way that does not affect taxpayers,” Dunlap said. “This is the builders’ contribution to the city, of which they take a lot of pride.”