A sculpture honoring the late Jody Hemphill Smith, nationally-renowned local artist and owner of the Castle Gallery will be dedicated on Oct. 16.
The piece, located on West Jefferson Boulevard, across from the Swinney Park tennis courts, is a brightly colored, 30-foot-tall by 15-foot-wide steel structure called Amaryllis, a reference to Hemphill Smith’s painting by the same name.
It was designed by Fort Wayne sculptor Cary Shafer, who has worked on the White House and Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
The work was painted and fabricated in steel by Kammerer Dynamics in Kendallville.
Here, WBOI’s Julia Meek discusses the purpose and impact of the legacy project with Jody’s husband, Mark Paul Smith and Shafer.
Event Information:
Amaryllis Sculpture Dedication and Ice Cream Social
1000 Garden Street
Oct. 16
5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Admission is Free
Find out more at the Hemphill Smith Art Foundation website.
Here is the transcript of our conversation:
Julia Meek: Mark Paul Smith, Cary Shafer, welcome.
Mark Paul Smith: Thank you.
Cary Shafer: Hi, Julia.
Julia Meek: Now with the gallery situated in the heart of West Central, many felt Jody was the heart of West Central. How palpable was that feeling and is that feeling today, Mark?
Mark Paul Smith: Jody fought for West Central for 50 years. She welcomed the entire community into West Central.
She welcomed them into her gallery, Castle Gallery, and she brought art to the people and people to the art. The Oil Painters of America did a show at Castle Gallery. She broke all sales records for the nation--in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Julia Meek: That's a lot of solidarity, a lot of solidarity. Now, the neighborhood itself was a symbol of artcentricity, the home of the Art School and the castle was actually an art museum from 1949 to 1984. How did Jody feel about that, and in fact, build on that foundation?
Mark Paul Smith: Jody understood the history of the art in West Central which began in the 1890s when the Art School came in. They fostered famous artists, Homer Davidson, Jim Baldwin, George McCulloch and all the professors there.
It was like the ripple effect; it went out from Fort Wayne. In the depression and post-World War Two, the apartments became cheap as the houses went down, and all the artists moved in and lived there. And so now that it's gentrified, still, some artists are there, but they're artists who have succeeded.
Julia Meek: And the vibes sound like they're pounded into the pavement, as it were, and the hearts and the lives and breathing in that whole neighborhood.
Mark Paul Smith: I mean, from horse and buggy to train to plane, it's been artcentric in West Central.
Julia Meek Fantastic. Now, Cary, you are one of Jody's fans and clients, confidants. What was all of that like, and the whole Jody effect?
Cary Shafer: Well, you know, for me, it was life changing. I met Jody at a time in my life when I was looking for something different, and I met her, and I met Mark, and seeing her live her life the way she did, it made total sense to me, and I pretty much just followed. I said what she's doing is what I want to do.
Julia Meek: (chuckles) Then you had a great opening portal into the whole art scene.
Cary Shafer: Absolutely.
Julia Meek: Living proof of what Mark just said about her being a catalyst for it.
Cary Shafer: Absolutely she was a catalyst. But watching her work, the magic that she could create, and I could see it in her work, and that blew me away. And I said, that's what I'd like to do. That speaks louder than my voice.
Julia Meek: Inspiration, wonderful. Now, Mark of your many close friends and Jody devotees, Max Meyer became, well, part of that whole family back in his youth. How has he helped with this Remember Jody movement?
Mark Paul Smith: Max Meyer has been a major force in the Hemphill Smith Art Foundation. He's been our IT guy, our video guy, our idea guy. This sculpture has a QR code on it so people can point their phone at it and get cued into a movie on how this sculpture was created. And that's all Max.
Julia Meek: That is all Max. Max did, quite openly worship, if you will, everything about the spirit Jody represented, as well as the gallery she did everything in, is that helping make this movement?
Mark Paul Smith: Max arrived in Fort Wayne in a beat-up old Volkswagen bus, and Jody was barefoot and walked him around the neighborhood and found him an apartment and encouraged his art career. So, they've loved each other.
Julia Meek: That's what she did, and that's what she developed in people. It was...
Cary Shafer: That's what the other side of Jody is known for, is how she would take in someone who just literally is looking for an apartment, and they find this place that has this feeling that they want to be a part of.
And if you meet Jody, then you become a part of it. There's nothing, you know once you kind of broke through that, and then there's Jody, and she's on your side, you're, you're golden.
Julia Meek: You had it!
Cary Shafer: Yeah, you met everybody. You knew every apartment; you know all the things. And you got to meet Mark.
Julia Meek: [all chuckle] Who could ask, who could ask for more? And by the way, Mark, who else is in on this with you officially?
Mark Paul Smith: There's a three-man board, me, Max Meyer and Andrew Dubach, who's been an invaluable cog in the machine, if you will. He ran Castle Gallery for 15 years. He is a fan of Jody's, and Jody was a big fan of Andrew's, and now he is pushing forward on the fundraising.
He's doing quite well at that, and what's happened is Castle gallery has become the Hemphill Smith Art Foundation, so we're moving forward with preserving and promoting Jody's legacy.
Julia Meek: Now fast forward to the space in which the final art piece, the monument, the sculpture, will live. It is larger-than-life. Why is that location the perfect spot for it, Mark?
Mark Paul Smith: It's on West Jefferson, as you come into town, right across from the Swinney Park tennis courts, in a triangle of land bounded by West, Jeff Garden Street and Swinney Park Place.
100,000 vehicles a week will see this sculpture, this gateway historic West Central sculpture.
And it'll say two things. It'll say, number one, you're entering West. Central, which is still the art center it has always been. And two, you're entering Fort Wayne, a city prepared to reimagine its artistic future.
Julia Meek: And part of the West Central's cultural cred is its landscaping. And Jody was all about that, the flowers and painting them as well. So back to the piece at hand, Carry and you the creator of it. It's a larger-than-life piece. Jody had a larger-than-life spirit. How are you taking that from idea to creation?
Cary Shafer: Okay, the short story is, Mark wanted a statue of Jody. I said, No. I said, what is Jody most known for? He said, her paintings. And I said, I want to do a sculpture of a painting.
I'm going to take the inspiration that I see in the painting, translate it into three dimensional. And I, you know, had an idea, and it worked out.
Julia Meek: And what was that idea?
Cary Shafer: Well, the idea was to deconstruct a painting, throw it up in the sky, and yet it has to be held by something, which we're calling the finial. So I created a finial-like frame. It's a giant flower.
I watched Jody paint a flower from the window of where I lived, and I became a sculptor because of watching her paint.
Julia Meek
Well, then it's only fair that you are sharing her very favorite subject in the entire universe in a sculpture. So how are you rendering floral pictures into a statue?
Cary Shafer: I broke a painting down into seven color elements, spaced them in between a steel frame, and it looks like what Jody would have painted if you could make a sculpture out of a painting.
Julia Meek: Again, being larger-than-life. What size are we talking?
Cary Shafer: I believe it's about 30-35, feet. And it's really not that big, because when you put it in its environment, it is going to fit in the environment.
If you saw it in front of my house, it would look big, but when you are seeing it in the environment, it will look like part of the landscape.
Julia Meek: I am curious. Have you ever been tasked with and just how difficult might it be to turn steel into a flower?
Cary Shafer: There's a lot of ways to do it, and there's some bad ones out there. I can certainly catalog them. The idea of taking a painting and deconstruct it based upon, you know, Jody didn't paint in seven colors. She painted in, I mean, you know, the universe.
So, I had to be able to break that down. I wanted to create shapes out of blends of colors that anybody could read driving by at 45 miles an hour, still see something that has movement. The thing about Jody's work, there's incredible movement in it. There's always something to look at.
There's always something that goes, you go, oh! And I want in this work to have something where you might go, oh, you know, because it's lifted up, not everybody will get it. But somebody will, you know, you have to make a transition from what a painting is and then convert that emotionally into steel.
Julia Meek: But they'll get it.
Mark Paul Smith: They will absolutely get it. This finial is 15 inches thick, and inside the 15 inches are quarter inch plates of steel, brightly colored with automotive paint. And when you see it all stacked up, it looks like a painting. It's incredible. We've seen it on the floor being designed and actually manufactured. This thing is impressive. It's monumental.
Julia Meek: We can't help but think that Jody would just love seeing her work rendered in this way.
Mark Paul Smith: She would love it. But she would also say, this is not about just me. This is about West Central Neighborhood.
Don't forget, in addition to the finial, there's going to be a monument carved by Cary Shafer that says Historic West Central. That's all it's going to say. This is about every artist that ever came out of West Central. This is a tribute to this creative pool of artists that have really transcended the entire cityscape.
Julia Meek: And part of the West Central's cultural cred is its landscaping. And Jody was all about that and painting it as well. Mark, can you share her florigraphic philosophy on both--the importance of flowers and preserving them in painting?
Mark Paul Smith: Well, she thought flowers were the most beautiful part of nature. She got them up close and personal, and she made them move, as flowers move, on their own. You know, flowers don't stay the same.
They look different every time you look at them. Jody could do that, but the colors were vivid. The girl could put more red on a painting than anybody had a right to do. [all chuckle] She was exciting when she painted. You can tell a brush stroke, whether it's tentative or whether it is in motion.
And I'm telling you, this girl had no doubt; she was moving all the time.
Cary Shafer: That's what I wanted to capture. That exact--what he just said. I looked at her brush strokes. I looked at the shapes they made, and you have to translate that into very simple things. But the goal was, does that shape do it? Exactly what Mark said? That's what!
Julia Meek: So, planning and executing a public artwork. What are the challenges?
Mark Paul Smith: The first challenge is the approval process. We went to the neighborhood association first. We got a lot of support from the West Central board, particularly President Joel Sauer, who also donated a bunch of money to the project.
The neighborhood kicked in a lot of money for this. And then we had to go to the Historic Preservation Commission twice, and then the Public Arts Commission. And finally, we got our little permit, and off we went.
Julia Meek: So once all that was behind you and the job started, any surprises along the way?
Cary Shafer: Well, that's another Jody influence.
Cary Shafer: How happy everybody is to do it. I am, like, gob smacked sometimes at how enthusiastic. Anytime Mark has, we've gone somewhere to get something from somebody, they have been very happy to participate.
And I'm just thrilled that Fort Wayne and everybody that has to be along that approval line has been enthusiastic. And that's a mentality change from when you know, I first came here.
Cary Shafer: That's a total Jody influence.
Mark Paul Smith: And the other thing is fundraising, and we've raised $275,000, we're still looking for donations, and they're always welcome, big or small. But people are voting with their pocketbooks on this, and they're, they're writing big checks, because why?
They believed in Jody and her message of art. And what a public work of art can do for property values, for the neighborhood, reputation, for every person's relationship, not only to the art, but to the fellow human being. Art connects us all.
Cary Shafer: Well, if I may, just in a second, also the way that Jodi sort of transformed my life. This piece is transforming this little triangle of land that is nothing. It's been nothing.
It's been screaming for something. It's going to be landscaped. It's got a circular sidewalk. It's going to draw people in. And that's what Jody did. This is a sort of metaphor of what kind of person Jody was.
Julia Meek: A great metaphor, a beautiful metaphor.
Cary Shafer: And it had to be what her spirit was, welcoming but enthusiastic.
Mark Paul Smith: But unexpected consequences and serendipitous results. This little triangle of land, now known as Amaryllis Place, connects Electric Works to Swinney Park and the River Greenway. And bicycles can come ride around and, and look at it. It's monumental.
Cary Shafer: It's a real connection. I mean, it's taking a couple of desperate pieces of land and getting them all connected together.
Julia Meek: In the most beautiful way, in the Jody Hemphill Smith way, indeed.
Cary Shafer: Yeah, yeah.
Julia Meek: Now, Jody has received so many accolades over the years, including a posthumous, Lifetime Achievement Award from Arts United. Why are all of these important going forward?
Mark Paul Smith: What's important about Jody's awards is the respect and love she gets from her students. She taught art for 20 years. The Castle Gallery was an Art Institute of Education.
She is still teaching after her, her death, thanks to Cary Shafer, and by the way, people don't realize what we've got in this sculptor. Cary worked on the National Cathedral. He's been involved in public works all over the city, all over the country. He's the real deal. This will be one of his legacy pieces.
Julia Meek: Now Max Meyer, besides being a lifelong friend and on the official committee, has also produced a documentary featured on PBS about Jody and her legacy, which is a wonderful piece, Mark. How was that received by artists, art lovers, residents, community alike.
Mark Paul Smith: It's being well received. People are watching it to this day. Lots of hits. It's on our website, and it seems to be growing in popularity.
And as soon as that foundation went in, all of a sudden, people are thinking, well, wait, this is really going to happen. Let's look at that documentary. And the documentary shows her as an art educator, an artist and a historic preservationist.
You know, Jody always understood the connection between art and architecture, and what is that? Architecture is art! [all laugh]
Cary Shafer: It's supposed to be!
Mark Paul Smith: Yeah, it's supposed to be! [chuckles]
Julia Meek: All easy concepts, and yes, she certainly got them. And now that Hemphill Smith Art Foundation you established in her honor with your committee, what exactly are its goals?
Mark Paul Smith: Twofold, the creation of public works of art and the awarding of scholarships for art students in Indiana colleges.
Julia Meek: So, we haven't heard the last then of either thing, this beautiful sculpture that Cary is sharing with us, for the whole community to enjoy, is the first of many, we hope.
Scholarships also important, because Jody really did understand the importance of being able to follow your dream, and that including artwork. What kind of an impact are you hoping this is going to make going forward?
Mark Paul Smith: Well, hoping it will be contagious and that other foundations will pick up the call to create more public works of art and Fort Wayne could use a lot more sculpture. We have some good sculpture.
We also have a lot of colonels and cannons and guys on horses with swords stabbing Native Americans. So, we want to talk about a more feminine female approach, a more art centric approach, a more peace approach. And dare I say it, love.
Julia Meek: All noble goals and all seemingly quite achievable with this piece and the foundation's backing of its message too. So, as this community is just about ready, and we'll be dedicating this Amaryllis, my last question is, what one thing special about Jody will creating this monument forever remind you of, Cary and Mark, what particular facet of Carrie's spirit of Jody Hemphill Smith's sculpture will be forever in your heart.
Cary Shafer: At every decision that I made, every, you know, as you're creating it, Jody was sitting on my shoulder, and I could hear her say, nope, nope, nope, nope. Then, yes, yes, yes! [all chuckle] And I can't not look at it, and I will never not look at it, and not hear her go, yes, yes! You know.
Julia Meek: [chuckles] Good for you and thank you. Mark?
Mark Paul Smith: Well, the great thing about Cary is he's fearless. He's doing something that really hasn't been done. You've seen paintings of sculpture.
You've never seen a sculpture of a painting. Imagine throwing the elements of a painting into thin air and surrounding it with steel. This is very bold, just like Jody.
Julia Meek: Mark Paul Smith is husband and partner of the late Jody Hemphill Smith and Cary Shafer, sculptor of the Amaryllis Monument. Thanks for sharing this story of our artcentric she-ro and preserving her memory. Job well done. Carry it on.
Cary Shafer: Thank you.
Mark Paul Smith: Thank you. We love you, Jody.
