Artist Jamie Lester

By Norman Julian

What do Morgantown founder Zackquill Morgan; Mountain State sports greats Jack Fleming, “Hot Rod” Hundley, and Jerry West; and major donors to the Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve in Fayette County have in common?

They’re all subjects of sculptures by Wyoming County native Jamie Lester, whose works are on display across the state and country.

While Jamie’s sculptures evoke images of an Appalachian Michelangelo, he prefers the work of his favorite artist, 17th-century Florence sculptor and architect John Lorenzo Bernini. In 2015, Jamie got to study Bernini’s work on site in Italy.

“Bernini worked in the Baroque era,” Jamie notes. “His sculptures show his figures in action mode. Everyone knows Michelangelo’s sculpture of David but not as many [know] Bernini’s sculpture of David. It was done in the early 1600s and shows [David] casting a stone with his sling. If I have an opportunity to do someone in action, even if they are sitting, I like to put that potential energy into the sculpture.”

Jamie sometimes captures that energy through emotion, too. That’s the case with his statue of actor Don Knotts, dedicated in downtown Morgantown in June 2016. Its easily understood details combine the simultaneous humor and tension the Morgantown native was known for.

Jamie shatters the false stereotype of great artists being stuffy and aloof. As one of his friends observes, “Jamie is a nice guy who coached soccer for his kids and organized a block party so neighbors would get to know each other. He is gracious and welcoming.”

Jamie, with his omnipresent brown Australian leather hat and abundant brunette beard, would look equally at home in the studios of Michelangelo or Bernini as he does in the mountains of West Virginia. A graduate of Oceana High School and West Virginia University, Jamie aspires to do world-class art right here in the Mountain State. He lives in the Woodburn section of Morgantown and commutes daily seven miles to a 30-by-44-foot, two-story, partially self-built, metal-pole building along Bull Run Road. The first of his two floors boasts 14-foot ceilings. He uses the top floor as a tool shop.

With us, too, is his dog Jack, a nine-year-old husky-retriever mix who pays only slight attention to the sculptures. He’s much more interested in Jamie’s every word and gesture. The tail-wagging dog quickly makes friends with me, a tape-recorder-toting visitor whose task is to capture what his master has to say.

It seems like Jamie has been almost ordained to be a professional artist since he was a toddler, but it’s taken him much study, insight, and no little amount of drive.

“I was three or four when I started,” Jamie says while standing in his studio, surrounded by a kiln, various tools, and two large in-progress statues—miniature sculptures from which life-sized ones will be created.

"My mother, Deborah Lester, is a watercolor painter,” Jamie says as we walk from work station to work station. “Growing up, there were always art materials around our house. There were many kinds of paints, pencils, fine-art papers, canvases, tracing papers. Most kids didn't have these.”

His coal miner father, Larry Lester, also encouraged his son in traditional Appalachian skills. “I whittled wood with real pocket knives,” Jamie says. “I lived in the woods, I built forts, which are kind of sculptures, too. I had the freedom to go out and try things, and no one would stop me, like maybe would be the case in an urban environment. Some parents wouldn't let their kids work with knives. My parents did.”

Jamie notes that in many ways, it’s easier for a West Virginia child to dream of being an artist: “Here, in many places, you can be kind of isolated. It takes a certain kind of person to use that to an advantage. I grew up with this small window on the world.

“Real early,” Jamie says, “I just picked up a pencil and started to draw.”

At Berlin McKinney Elementary in Oceana, his teacher Jo Ann Scott (now Toler) displayed his drawings of dinosaurs on the school’s walls. She and Jamie still talk via Facebook, where he shares many of his works in progress and, sometimes, his social and political views.

Another early influence was teacher Harlon Brown, “who taught me to look at art in a serious way,” Jamie recalls. “Art is not a laughing matter.”

Encouraged by the recognition, Jamie was on his artistic way. “I kept developing my drawing and painting through high school. I did some shows. I won some awards. I was convinced I was going to do art as a career, but I never thought I’d be a sculptor.”

That evolved into reality after he enrolled at WVU in 1992 and took a ceramics class. Jamie remembers, “That opened up a new world to me, working in three dimensions. It was different and challenging.” Visiting Chinese artist Jiansheng “Jackson” Lee “shaped what I saw was possible in my ceramics and sculpture. It took off from there. I was soon doing figure sculpture. I was going to the portrait, the figure.”

He still did some award-winning pottery, and some pieces sold. In college, he accumulated 24 core hours of credits in ceramics and sculpture alone. But when he graduated in 1997, it was far from certain he could earn a living from art.

“My oldest daughter, Hannah, was about to be born. I was really motivated. I was working at a pizza place, but I believed I could make a living with art. I couldn’t have done so without the help of my friends,” he says.

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