Maybe it's fitting that a sculpture found two years ago which Student Programs Coordinator Linda Kennedy thought perfect for a student center when Collis was a mere skeleton, is now sitting in the entrance of the three-term old center.
Jeff Sass, the creator the sculpture titled, "Rock Band," loaned it to the student center which opened in the Winter term.
Kennedy said, "A few years ago, I saw a sculpture that I thought was delightful. It was just when the Collis Center was just a gleam in Holly Sateia's eyes."
Sass, who has lived in the Upper Valley for more than 16 years, made the mirror that has a miniature replica of a rock concert attached to it, out of various materials he found.
He said he loaned the piece, which was installed on July 15, to the College because he said he had some great experiences with Dartmouth students and professors when he took swimming and tennis lessons with his daughter at College clinics and learned French last year at Dartmouth.
"People were very gracious and I really appreciated this," he said in a telephone interview from his home in White River Junction, Vt. "I have been here the past sixteen years and this was really my first encounter with the faculty and students. I really don't know what took me so long."
Kennedy said if students like the sculpture, Sass will give it to the College as a permanent installation in Collis.
She said she found the "Rock Group" two years ago at the Ava Gallery in Vermont that shows local artsists' work . Kennedy said she had tried to get the Class of 1992 and the Programming Board to buy the piece, but they balked.
She said her mother, who works at the gallery, approached her and said Sass wanted to donate a sculpture piece to the College for the students.
"I guess it's a fuzzy Upper Valley story," Kennedy said.
Sass said brought the piece back to his house after the piece did not sell in California.
Kennedy said, "As a piece of sculpture, it's really understandable. I mean you can play with it a little."
Sass, who makes hand-sculpted mirrors and beds, said he uses various pieces of metals he finds in his work, including gun parts and cast-iron pieces "that have beautiful imprints in them."
He said he used airplane bolts for the "lights or speaker system" in the "Rock Band" and that the audience is made out of nails that took him three weeks to get into the right shape.
Sass said the stadium is made out of the air filter from a 1960s Cadillac -- "it was from before they had fuel injection."
Sass said Kennedy has been pressing him to find out who the rockers are on stage.
He said there were a few bands that influence him, but added, "I guess they're whoever you want them to be."
