Photography provided by @K_DougDE
A couple years ago, I began visiting many art galleries that it soon became a small hobby of mine to visit art galleries in places that I had never attended before. I draw most of my inspiration from how I feel at the time, music, current societal problems or issues going on, and of course from other artist’s work. I love seeing what other artists come up with while in their own labs of mad art science, I even like to read the backgrounds on each painting that may interest me from other artists. Once I began visiting galleries during undergrad of college, I quickly turned it into a whole challenge for myself to see how many art galleries I could visit in a year. Me being on a search and having a desire for this challenge, it has opened up many doors for me with art exhibits and shows, along with networking with others who may have the same style of design as me. This has also granted me with more opportunities to travel as well, which is the best part of the #DEArTour!
My most recent travel spot was to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where I took some time to check out The National Historic Brookgreen Gardens’ Friends Fine Art Auction on Friday May 05, 2017. The first thing that caught my attention was the size of the garden itself. There was a little drive before actually getting to the garden which sits on about 9,000 acres of land that display the beauty of South Carolina’s Low Country vegetation and true nature.
Len Gameway. Sculpture. 1980. Derek Wernher.
When I first walked into the garden, this sculpture created by Michigan artist Derek Wernher of a farmer reading the newspaper. It was created to symbolize the readers of a Michigan newspaper back in 1980.
Old Man and Dog. Sculpture. — . Glenna Goodacre.
The first gallery stop along the beautiful flower filled garden trail consisted of many different sculptures and paintings. Many that were beautiful and well composed to me. Very colorful and had many expressions to them, including larger than life standing sculptures. One that I could not take my eyes off of and I kept coming back to was the Old Man and Dog 3 feet tall, bronze sculpture. It just seemed so innocent yet spoke a thousand words at the same time. Something you would typically see while taking a walk in the park. This piece was created by Glenna Goodacre who is known as “America’s Sculptor”. She has created over 600 different sculptures all over the United States including the Vietnam Women’s Memorial in which she is highly known for in Washington, D.C. in 1993. Other works of hers that I liked while visiting the garden include CEO which is shown below. This is a 6 foot sculpture made of bronze.
Old Man and Dog. Sculpture. — . Glenna Goodacre.
There were many paintings from many great artists featured in the first gallery stop, including: Bobby Bagley, Mandy Johnson, Stephen Scott Young, Linda St. Clair, and Jonathan Green.
Escorting of Ruth. Lithograph. — . Jonathan Green
Shelly At Sixteen. Watercolor. — . Stephen Scott Young
Orchids. Oil. — . Bobby Bagley | Southern Flavor. Oil. — . Bobby Bagley
Full Moon. Acrylic. — . Mandy Johnson | Trade Out. Acrylic. — . Mandy Johnson
Sweet Carrie Jane. Oil. — . Linda St. Claire.
As I made my way out of the first gallery stop and back into the garden, I noticed many wild animals just roaming around freely, along with animal installations throughout the garden. The first one I came across was called The Thinker created by Marshall Maynard Fredricks who passed away in 1998.
The Thinker. Sculpture. — . Marshall Maynard Fredricks
Second installation I came across was that of a pig. Now this one really caught my attention because I have recently stopped consuming all pork for almost a full year now. The name of the sculpture is called Eat More Beef which I thought was the coolest thing ever, making this art piece #1 in my list of favorites from the garden. The name of it shows that it was created as a stanch against pork consumption, hence if you eat more beef you won’t want to eat more pork. It also reminded me of fast food restaurant Chic-Fil-A slogan of “eat more chicken”, as they use cows to push this message as though symbolizing that cows are trying to save themselves from consumption. This artwork was created by leading animal sculpture, Sandy Scott who originally began her art career as a print maker after graduating from the Art Institutes of Kansas City.
Eat More Beef. Sculpture. — . Sandy Scott.
A third sculpture installation that caught my attention while making my way through the garden was that of a young boy standing in a chair made from bronze. It is titled, I’m Tall. I thought it was the most precious piece out of all of them and displayed a lot of expression. You could feel how the boy shown really does feel as though he is taller than world from simply standing in a chair. As kids and children, we have all done this growing up, whether it be wanting to feel taller or just feeling like we have a sense of enlargement.
I’m Tall. Sculpture. 2016. Alex Palkovich.
Along with sculpture installations and amazing painted artwork, there were many gardening and art based tips around the garden. Some appealed towards adults and others for children and schools that may be on field trips to the garden, as this is a National landmark in South Carolina.
Once I left the trail way, I ended up in a beautiful sculpture courtyard area with waterfalls and many shrub plants. There were multiple areas like this all over the garden with many different varieties of sculptures in them. The main sculptures were located in the middle of each area, also on top of water. It was a really cool, amazing scenery.
Check out a couple more images below taken from the last garden I went through before calling it a day. It takes about 2-3 days to walk through the entire thing but there are mobile tours and boat tours available. For me, at the time, I wanted to walk since it was my first time there. I plan to go back soon in order to visit the butterfly garden they have on site as well, there was just too much to do with such little time I had to work with. I hope you all enjoyed! More contact information has been listed below as well for anyone interested in visiting this summer or fall. Have a great day everyone!
Brookgreen Gardens
Brookgreen Gardens Art Festival – June 3-4, 2017
Photography by @K_DougDE
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