Damariscotta will install a restored 1959 wood carving of its town seal by the late artist Maurice “Jake” Day at the town office next month.
Day’s grandson, Damariscotta resident Dan Day, restored the carving.
The circular carving is four feet in diameter. The seal shows two gray fish leaping out of dark blue waves against a light blue background. The text, in black block letters, includes the name of the town and the state and the town’s year of incorporation, 1848.
The carving will be installed in the town office meeting room, along with a photograph of Jake Day carving the seal found in the artist’s archives by Dan Day.
The carving used to hang outside the old Damariscotta fire station and town office at 27 Church St., the present-day location of Cherry Gallery.
Eventually, “the weather won,” Dan Day said, and the seal broke into four pieces. Dan Day’s father, the late Dr. McClure Day, attempted to restore the seal in the mid-1990s, but again, the seal suffered damage as a result of exposure.
Dan Day said he asked about the seal at the present-day town office, where it was stored in a closet in a “dilapidated” condition.
He described his restoration as “a labor of love” and said he’s pleased with the plan to hang it inside, where “it will last forever,” he said.
Dan Day said he did not know how his grandfather came to carve the seal; whether the town commissioned the work or whether Day volunteered his services.
He said that, knowing his grandfather and all he did for Damariscotta during his life, he probably did it “for the love of the town.”
Day, an animator, cartoonist, illustrator, painter, photographer and wood carver, was known for his work on “Bambi,” as well as his dioramas and watercolors of animals of the Maine woods dancing and singing, playing sports and otherwise engaging in human pursuits.
