Plans to build a memory bench for late artist Jim Taliana have been fast tracked three months ahead of schedule. Rather than waiting until Labor Day to unveil the stone bench in the Boothbay Harbor Whale Park, the project is slated to be complete by Memorial Day.

In early April, Jennifer Litchfield, Donna Dennison and Barbara Eldred of Boothbay Region Arts Foundation traveled to J. C. Stone in Washington, Maine to pick out the ideal rocks for Taliana's bench.

They decided on a piece of Heritage Valley stone, a native rock with deep blues and gray striations running through the slab.

“It has beautiful free form striations, and to us that just looked like Jim Taliana's stone,” Eldred said.

The stone is now in the hands of local sculpture Dick Alden who will be carving and assembling the stone bench in the next few weeks. The bench will be roughly 8 feet long, and 44 inches at its widest point, and will sit on natural shaped stone legs.  Stone sculpting has been a lifetime hobby for Alden. Following his retirement in 2009, he's been sculpting full time.

Alden said he expects there will be a lot of shaping, grinding and polishing to the top portion of the bench, as well as some splitting of stones to form the bench legs.

“I'm very excited, and absolutely honored that the art foundation would ask me to do this,” Alden said.

Eldred said the experience has been very positive so far and that the BRAF is hoping more community members want to participate in the project.

Donations can be made to Boothbay Region Art Foundation, P.O. Box 124, Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538.