Marin loves George Lucas, and George Lucas loves Marin. Thus he donated some land in downtown San Anselmo for the creation of Imagination Park, now almost complete, and he put up money for the creation of two bronze statues for the public space: one of Indiana Jones, and one of Yoda.

S.F. already has a Yoda statue at the Presidio campus of LucasFilm, which is the site of many a nerd pilgrimage. Now the nerds will have a new destination at 535 San Anselmo Avenue, in San Anselmo.

Lucas has lived in San Anselmo for forty years, and when he unveiled the statues at a ceremony on Thursday, he noted how the two iconic characters were created "right up the street."

As the Marin IJ reports, the statues were created by Berkeley sculptor and former LucasFilm employee Lawrence Noble, who says he had never sculpted a thing until he saw The Empire Strikes Back over 30 years ago and was inspired to create a figure of Yoda.

[Marin IJ]