When you look back in time, remembering events that have happened, only the important and most significant moments stick with you. The memories may be slightly foggy, details and dates may be mixed but the main memory is always intact. When I look back at growing up in Jeffersonville, Indiana I have many of these memories. Jeffersonville is a city where not that much happens. Most people who live here go to the surrounding towns and cities, such as Clarksville, IN and Louisville KY to enjoy shopping, dining and entertainment so it was to our excitement when an artist installed a 20ft statue in the industrial area of our boring town.
Winds of Change or The Lady as most people refer to it is a 20ft tall statue of a woman, made entirely of metal hubcaps welded together. This statue is standing on a pile of busted concrete blocks. She stands with her back leaning slightly backwards as her cape, which is draped over her shoulders blows in the wind. Her left hand rests lightly on her chest as her right hand is holding a rose. The size of the statue gives a feeling of strength and power to the piece. Behind the statue is another part of the installation which is a 10ft tall scale, made of welded metal and metal cross beams, this scale is holding two metal boulders, one on each side. There are words inscribed on both metal boulders. One reads “Commitments” and the other reads “Love”. Below each boulder, on the ground lays a pyramid made out of bricks. The pyramids displays more messages. The one that lays below the “Commitments” boulder declares “Always Too Much” and the one that lays below the “Love” boulder declares “Never Enough”. Winds of Change was commissioned in 1993 by local business owner Larry Meyers. Meyers hired recent high...
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...rom its beginning to current time. Every time I travel to visit my mother, who lives in the same house that I grew up in, I see the statue of The Lady and no matter if I am purposely looking or not, she stands out as a part of this city. The Winds of Change has evolved for me from being just “ugly” to showing the true purpose and meaning of the piece which represents women and is a tribute to the endurance and strength they possess.
Works Cited
The Lady. Geocaching. Quiddler. December 18, 2012. November 17, 2013. http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCB614_the-lady?guid=5f89c43f-9981-46c8-b0e5-f18a2306e656
Roadsideamerica.com. November 17, 2013. November 17, 2103 http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/3673
“The Lady- Jeffersonville, Indiana”. Lane Weiser. May 19, 2013. November 17, 2013. http://eerie-indiana.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-lady-jeffersonville-indiana.html
Engel, Mary Ella. “The Appalachian “Granny”: Testing the Boundaries of Female Power in Late-19th-Century Appalachian Georgia.” Appalachian Journal 37.3/4 (2010): 210-225 Literary Reference Center. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
The readers are apt to feel confused in the contrasting ways the woman in this poem has been depicted. The lady described in the poem leads to contrasting lives during the day and night. She is a normal girl in her Cadillac in the day while in her pink Mustang she is a prostitute driving on highways in the night. In the poem the imagery of body recurs frequently as “moving in the dust” and “every time she is touched”. The reference to woman’s body could possibly be the metaphor for the derogatory ways women’s labor, especially the physical labor is represented. The contrast between day and night possibly highlights the two contrasting ways the women are represented in society.
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Washington, DC is a spectacular place. This being my first time in DC, I was in awe of everything and all the historical places I encountered. The presence of the monuments and history is what made the capitol so magnificent. Having only read about the Lincoln memorial, I never had the chance to experience the sensation of being inside such an honorable place of importance. The imposing white marble walls of the memorial and the many people surrounding it could be seen from afar. Arriving at the location, an unknown feeling came over me. I was experiencing history in a whole different level. When I think about a memorial, the term remembrance comes to mind. Seeing the statue of Abraham Lincoln brought pieces of memories from history class and evoked thoughts of what it might have felt like to be in his shoes. I was astonished by the statue’s enormousness and how grand Abraham Lincoln looked in his chair. The size of the statue compared to pictures from books and elsewhere was surreal. Abraham Lincoln was a very “powerful and prominent individual” in the history of our nation, the statue’s design and size reflected upon that. Looking around me, I wanted to know what the others thoughts were on seeing his statue and how they felt in that building. I finally had the courage to ask one or two people what they thought; they all had the same appreciation as me. Hearing about an important person or learning about them in a history book gives you vast knowledge but it doesn’t evoke the feeling of utter appreciation as the memorial does. When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, many people wanted to build a memorial in honor of him. They wanted to be able to show how important he was to shaping our nation and to “honor his existence”. Ce...
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With concern over global warming growing, people are starting to turn a more serious eye toward cleaner sources of energy. Instead of solar power making a comeback as the ideal form, we are seeing a growth in the use of wind power. Wind farms are beginning to crop up all around the country. This new trend has gathered significant attention. Questions are being raised concerning the effects wind farms may have, from critics and supporters alike. Michelle Nijhuis, in the article “Selling the Wind” discusses the arguments on behalf of and in opposition to the increasing use of wind power, addressing what the consequences may be on the United States.
History has a strange way of coming back around when it comes to human civilization. It has been said repeatedly that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. However, just because there is a potential for danger in the future, this does not mean that humanity must ignore what once was. History is normally remembered through what is known as a memorial. When a memorial is put into a physical representation, it is then known as a monument.The need to memorialize events or people is complex; in some cases, monuments honor moments of great achievement, while in other cases, monuments pay homage to deep sacrifice. A monument's size, location, and materials are all considerations in planning and creating a memorial to the past. Examples of such feats are the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and even Mount Rushmore. For the latter of the
Margaret Mitchell’s epic tale is impossible to dissolve down to a “brief” description. Her story is the War and Peace of Southern Literature. It is a tale of extremes and contrasts, telling the tragic story of peaceful affluence destroyed by the ravages of war and the destitution and desolation of its aftermath. It is a love story that examines the motivations of the heart contrasted against the will to survive. It is a story of the destruction of an aristocratic society and its disintegration from nobility, honor and hope to humility, disgrace and despair. It is a historical novel and graphic retelling of the Civil War and the Reconstruction of the South as well as a journal of the human side of those events as it recounts the characters struggles to adapt as their lives and their world crumbles. Gone with the Wind is a literary classic that gives the reader a compelling history wrapped in a thrilling romance. Mitchell recreates an idyllic Antebellum Society complete with simpering Southern Belles and Noble Gentlemen, grand plantations and vast fields of cotton, privileged white land-owners contrasted against the poverty of captive black slaves. She details a horrific reenactment of the bloody clash between the Southern Rebels and the Northern Yankees, then like the Phoenix, she raises the South from its own ashes to a new, but very different way of life. Somehow in this rich and vibrant historical tale she manages to bring her equally rich and vibrant character’s lives along the same metaphorical path of affluence, destruction and survival in a mesmerizing account that is the stuff of legend.
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I believe this period was a window that helped make it easier for women to become more equal to men and that this era was a necessity, which even if women artists now don’t realize the help that Rococo gave it was a step in the right direction. That even though the artists may not see it themselves, Rococo has had an influence on their own work as well.
While a quick glance at the painting reveals a soft, gentle female form with a background of intriguing landscape, further study introduces an added layer of mystery. The way the woman glances slightly to the side as well as her small smile makes viewers feel that she knows some secret. Yet, at the same time, she appears to be a very kind, friendly and approachable.
This place is meaningful to me because it is part of the county I loved, is part of the county where I grew up and is part of my childhood. This place is in the country in an old region named Appalachia, a small piece of the Appalachian Mountains, in a town named Pikeville.