Ray Charles Plaza

Ray Charles Plaza - Albany GA 05-15-2014While we were meandering on back roads to get home to Florida from home in Missouri, one of the Road Warriorettes – I think it was Curator Jessica – spotted a guy playing a piano next to the Flint River in Albany, Georgia. That was worth a U-turn.

Ray Charles is a native son of Albany

Here’s a description of the park and sculpture from a city website:

Albany Georgia, birthplace of Ray Charles, has memorialized the city’s most famous native son with a downtown park that bears his name, airs his music, and features a one-of-a-kind sculpture that is one of only two sculptures in the world that bear the likeness of the legendary blues and jazz singer.

Sculpture plays music

Ray Charles Plaza - Albany GA 05-15-2014Located in Downtown Albany on Front Street between Oglethorpe Blvd. and Broad Avenue, directly accross the street from Hilton Garden Inn, Ray Charles Plaza, designed by landscape architectural firm Jordan, Jones and Goulding of Norcross Georgia, sits on the bank of the Flint River and gives Riverfront Park visitors the experience of a Ray Charles performance. A revolving, illuminated, bronze statue of Ray Charles seated at a baby grand piano, the work of sculptor Andy Davis, is the park’s centerpiece.

Miniature displayed in visitor center

Ray Charles Plaza - Albany GA 05-15-2014As water flows down the sides of the statue, music by the legendary blues singer plays on the park’s loudspeakers. Students from Georgia Academy for the Blind assisted Mr. Davis with the design. The students and Mr. Davis also designed a touchable miniature version of the statue that features markings in braille.

The statue is flanked by two walkways designed as keyboards with raised sharps and flats that form benches. The walkways connect to the Albany Riverwalk. The park’s “scenery” includes a large treble clef in the plaza floor and “moonlight in the pines” from the song, Georgia On My Mind. Reflecting Georgia’s longleaf pine forests, the “Moonlight in the Pines” scenery consists of illuminated loblollies, longleaf pines, live oaks and grasses.

Downtown has another attraction that I’ll save for another day.

A Hocking Block

Hocking Block - Ray Charles Plaza - 05-14-2014You KNOW you are traveling with a museum curator when she starts jumping up and down all excited at spotting a Hocking block in a walkway in Albany, Georgia. The block came from a brickyard in SE Ohio, not far from where the Athens County Historical Society and Museum is located.

Shadow Rest Ministries

Shadow Rest Ministeries 04-29-2014Driving down West Cape Rock Drive on the way to pick up Dick McClard, I noticed what I thought was a small, white church high on a hill. When I mentioned it, Dick said the road off Hwy 635 was washed out, but we could get to it from another direction.

After a day of rambling, we ended up at Shadow Rest Ministries, a spiritual retreat with some of the most relaxing cabins I’ve seen anywhere. I’d like to go back and do the place justice. Click on the photos to make them larger.

The Yurt

Yurt at Shadow Rest Ministries 04-29-2014The most intriguing structure was a yurt, a wood lattice frame with a durable fabric cover. We were there on a very windy day, but the inside of the building was almost soundproof. There was no sense that we were in a fabric building.

Simple and comfortable

Yurt at Shadow Rest Ministries 04-29-2014All of the facilities I saw were unique and very comfortable. This is inside the yurt.

 

Ducking the Question

Geese at Shadow Rest Ministeries 04-29-2014After being taken to task for calling some web-footed honkers “ducks” the other day, I’m going to hedge my bets and say that I was just a little bit out of position when I shot these water fowl headed to a pond.

I saw them climbing up an embankment, but they were badly backlit. By the time they got into a little bit better angle, they were just about to disappear over the top. I barely had time to pop off a couple not-too-sharp frames.

You can click on the photo to make it larger, but that’ll just make it fuzzier.

“We got us a convoy”

Geese at Shadow Rest Ministeries 04-29-2014Looks like a good place to go back to 1976 and C.W. McCall:

Ah, breaker one-nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck. You gotta copy on me, Pig Pen, c’mon? Ah, yeah, 10-4, Pig Pen, fer shure, fer shure. By golly, it’s clean clear to Flag Town, c’mon. Yeah, that’s a big 10-4 there, Pig Pen, yeah, we definitely got the front door, good buddy. Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy.

Louis Houck’s Statuary Collection

Louis Houck's Statuary Collection 04-25-2014 Yesterday we showed the exterior of the old First Baptist Church, now Southeast Missouri State University’s Aleen Vogel Wehking Alumni Center. Today, as promised, we’ll “go inside” to see the Barbara Hope Kem Statuary Hall, an auditorium created from the former church’s sanctuary.

I thought the layout of the sanctuary area where the statues are displayed looked a little strange for a church. Two of my readers commented that was because the banks wanted to hedge their bets, so they required that the building be constructed so it could be used as a theater in case the church couldn’t pay off the loan. The balcony, Liz Lockhart wrote, even had space for a projection booth, should it ever be needed.

Plaster casts came from 1904 World’s Fair

Louis Houck's Statuary Collection 04-25-2014The statues and other pieces of artwork were bought by Louis Houck after he saw the August Gerber’s reproductions of classical, medieval, renaissance, and modern art works displayed at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. He acquired the casts for $1,888.25.

Lauren Kellogg Disalvo’s master’s thesis, THE AURA OF REPRODUCTION: PLASTER CAST COLLECTIONS AT THE 1904 LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION, contains a large section on Houck’s purchase.

Disalvo writes that Houck’s donation of the statuary stipulated that a room be dedicated to them where they could be permanently displayed. The display opened in March of 1905 with the statues in Academic Hall.

Statues damaged and destroyed

Louis Houck's Statuary Collection 04-25-2014The casts remained there until 1959, when they were dispersed all over campus to make room for additional classroom space. They suffered from benign neglect over the years, with many being damaged or destroyed. One of my readers wrote that he had seen broken statues in the basement of Academic Hall when he was a student.

(For all I know, Venus de Milo might have had both her arms before SEMO got hold of her.)

Judy Crow takes up the cause

Louis Houck's Statuary Collection 04-25-2014In 1975, my friend, Judy Crow, Missourian librarian, wrote a story bemoaning the fate of the Houck collection.

The result was, Disalvo writes, “the plaster casts were gathered, restored and transferred to the Southeast Missouri Regional Museum. The casts remained in the museum until it relocated to the new Rosemary Berkel and Harry L. Crisp II Southeast Missouri Regional Museum. According to the museum director, Dr. Stanley Grand, the plaster casts were not included in this new museum since the new museum would focus on the archaeology, history, and fine arts of the Southeast Missouri region.”

I’m not surprised that the River Campus, which knocked down the handball courts, one of the Cape’s oldest landmarks, couldn’t find room for Houck’s donation. The irony is the university probably wouldn’t be in Cape Girardeau today had Houck not used his influence to rebuild Academic Hall after the first one burned down.

Class of 1957 raised $100,000

Louis Houck's Statuary Collection 04-25-2014In 2007, the Class of 1957 raised $100,000 to have the remaining 38 surviving casts restored and moved to the Aleen Vogel Wehking Alumni Center, formerly the First Baptist Church, where they now line the walls of an auditorium area, called the Barbara Hope Kem Statuary Hall.

The display is open to the public. Admission is free. I think Houck would approve.

Louis Houck Statuary photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.