World-renowned artists will join local talent to commemorate the most recent history of human civilization living along the banks of the Ocmulgee River.
After years of planning, the layout of Macon’s Bicentennial Park is coming into focus with sculptures, statues and monuments to the past while also portraying the hope for continued reconciliation among the city’s people.
When Macon celebrated its Centennial with construction of the City Auditorium, the local architectural firm of P.E. Dennis oversaw the project.
Fast forward a century and his great-granddaughter, landscape architect Wimberly Treadwell drew up plans for the Bicentennial Park bordered by Clinton and Main streets near the current back entrance to the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park.
“It’s going to be a passive park,” Treadwell told the Macon Arts Alliance at its August meeting.
The now-defunct Macon-Bibb County Bicentennial Committee raised about $1 million to enhance the large lawn that’s adjacent to the East Macon Mill Hill Community Arts Center.
The vision was to create a history walk on the grounds that would mark significant events, including the removal of Native Americans and enslavement of African people.
When planning the park, Mill Hill development partners, the Urban Development Authority and the Macon Arts Alliance, consulted their east side neighbors.
“About the only requirement that came out of that meeting was that they wanted an open field,” Treadwell said.
As she worked with colleagues Laurie Fickling and Bob Brown, she was stymied on how to tell Macon’s Bicentennial story.
“It’s 200 years, so how do you tell it in a park?” she wondered. “Six or eight months in, we were lost.”
After consulting various experts, they decided to turn to artists.
With the help of Macon Arts Alliance Executive Director Julie Wilkerson, they put out a request for qualifications through the CaFÉ website, which stands for “call for entry.”
They received about six dozen responses.
“They really didn’t know what would happen, but we did a national call for the mural festival and we knew the quality of work we had gotten,” Wilkerson told her board at this month’s meeting.
A team of advisors ranked the submissions and eight sculptors were paid a stipend to design proposed artwork for the park. Three were chosen.
Although final arrangements are pending, the panel selected some internationally-known sculptors.
Internationally acclaimed artists
Israeli-born and New York-based sculptor Ilan Averbuch studies and incorporates primitive cultures in his designs.
“My work involves the recycling of images and materials, moving from one time span to another,” his website declares.
Averbuch, who built massive sculptures for sites across North America, Europe and Israel, plans to erect a large metal boat hoisted and carried by faceless people who represent people of all races and ethnicities who can remove barriers between one another.
“What I love about the boat… it’s not specific to any one group of people,” Wilkerson said. “All can feel the hope and see that the walls moved and can move again.”
The timeless and sturdy sculpture can inspire generations to come, Treadwell said.
“It will be magnificent and it is going to walk toward the river and tell us everyone can work together to remove barriers,” she explained.
Native American metalsmith Kenneth Johnson, who grew up in Oklahoma and now lives in Sante Fe, New Mexico, won first place in sculpture and selected best artist at last year’s Mvskoke Art Market in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.
The Muscogee/Seminole artist was commissioned to create custom jewelry pieces for U.S. Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonya Sotomayor and Sandra Day O’Connor, according to his website.
Johnson plans to use bronze to fashion a Native American stickball player in the likeness of his grandfather. The park’s field is regulation size for the lacrosse-like sport designed hundreds of years ago.
The statue will stand in front of a towering piece of Georgia marble etched with remembrances of the first inhabitants of this land, their removal, recent return and Macon-Bibb County’s reconciliation with the Muscogee Creek Nation.
Treadwell took advantage of a recent trip to northern Spain to visit with sculptor Casto Solano, who has designed public art in South Korea, Ireland, England, France and across the United States — including the Jacksonville Jaguars’ massive mascot head outside the team’s stadium in Florida.
Solano is creating a series of sculptured steel panels of images to create a narrative path of living art related to Macon’s history.
The pieces will be situated so that visitors will move through different sections of rooms.
“It will be cut so that there will be shadows on the ground, and as you move around, when you get up close it’s going to look like one thing and when you get back, it will look like something else,” Treadwell said. “This is just international unbelievable coming to Macon, Georgia.”
Macon Arts Alliance board member Ric Geyer, who owns the Triangle Arts creative hub, liked what he saw.
“I’m incredibly impressed,” Geyer said. “What impresses me the most is the caliber of talent you brought.”
The park also will feature the brick “Column of Change” originally created by local artists Alexis Gregg and Tanner Coleman for a temporary exhibit at the Atlanta Beltway years ago, and a couple of wind sculptures commissioned by the Urban Development Authority.
Although the groundwork for the park is expected to be completed this year, the art won’t be ready for installation until next year.
Kids’ art sought for mural project
Younger artists also have a chance to leave their creative mark on Macon.
In addition to this year’s Macon Mural Festival coming up Sept. 13-15, the Macon Arts Alliance also is working on another mural project that could feature local children’s designs.
Saturday, from 5-8 p.m. during the First Street Art & Wine Festival, the alliance is inviting children to draw on paper what makes them happy or what means home to them.
The youngsters’ artwork will be submitted to a muralist along with any other pieces collected from the community. The artist will evaluate the kids’ designs, which might be included in the painting.
During the second annual Mural Fest taking place the second weekend in September, UDA will sponsor a mural on its parking deck next to the Douglass Theatre. Other specific mural locations have yet to be announced but are expected to include the Longleaf Distillery and the Brian Adams law firm.
— Civic Journalism Senior Fellow Liz Fabian covers Macon-Bibb County government entities for The Macon Newsroom and can be reached at [email protected] or 478-301-2976.
