The hand statue, Agraria, sat in front of Santa Rosa Plaza for nearly three decades before being removed last week and sent to Geyserville.
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If you were walking to work last Tuesday morning near Fourth and B streets, you could hear construction crews drilling into the foundation of the 7.5-ton marble hand sculpture in front of Santa Rosa Plaza.
Crews finished removing the artwork, called Agraria, from it base Friday, sending it by flatbed to its new home in Geyserville.
A week after leadership from Santa Rosa Plaza announced the Agraria sculpture would be moved, community members expressed their disappointment that the iconic artwork was leaving the city.
The mall donated the sculpture to the Geyserville Community Foundation which plans to install the hand in front of the town’s former post office at the corner of Geyserville Avenue and Highway 128. The plan is to have it ready by May 17, according to Santa Rosa’s communications coordinator, Katy Oceguera.
She said in an email to The Press Democrat that the city learned of the donation a week before it was publicly announced. She said the mall owned the statue and was in charge of its relocation.
“I moved here four years ago and the first time I came to downtown Santa Rosa actually I saw it,” said Santa Rosa resident Heloise Ralanto, one of the co-owners of design firm Apres-Midi.
Her business partner Sarah Dal Porto remembered one of the last times she saw Agraria in front of the mall.
“It was a surprise,” Dal Porto said. “I just dropped by (the mall) actually and saw the gate up. I haven’t heard about it.”
A reader survey conducted by The Press Democrat showed mixed reactions to the hand’s departure from downtown.
Of those who participated, 59% said they were sad the statue was moving since it was part of downtown’s identity. Fifteen percent were glad it’ll be preserved elsewhere.
In a previous interview, artist Larry Kirkland said he was pleased the mall found a new home for his piece, which symbolizes Sonoma County’s agricultural heritage.
“A lot of my pieces are landmarks in different communities,” Kirkland said. “That’s what art is supposed to do. It’s supposed to give a sense of identity to a community because it’s unique.”
A local volunteer for the Santa Rosa Yes In My Backyard organization, Adrian Covert, expressed his disappointment with the move.
“We don’t have very many iconic monuments to stick in people’s minds and make the place memorable. And the hand sculpture was one of the few things we had so it’s sad to see it go — how sad will depend on what Santa Rosa Plaza proposed to replace it with,” Covert said.
The mall declined to say why it was removing the sculpture, or whether the long-stalled P.F. Chang’s project, which proposed building a driveway and putting in parking spaces directly in front of the restaurant’s B Street entrance — near the sculpture’s location, was behind the move.
The city had not received an update regarding those plans or any indication on whether the restaurant chain intends to move forward with the parking space plan, Oceguera said.
Some people questioned whether the mall is required to replace the sculpture under the city’s public art ordinance.
Oceguera said because Agraria was build in 1996, it precedes the ordinance and the mall is not required to replace it with other public art.
Oceguera said the mall and the city plan to launch a Temporary Art Walk at the end of the year featuring 10 fresh artworks throughout downtown Santa Rosa and Railroad Square.
For Ralanto and Dal Porto, they both hope to see more modern works of public art in Santa Rosa to improve the city’s quality of life.
“Public art is so essential. We completely champion it, we think it’s wonderful. So to hear a piece is being taken away and moved somewhere else is a bummer,” Dal Porto said.
You can reach Staff Writer Melanie Nguyen at 707-521-5457 or melanie.nguyen@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @mellybelly119
