The giant leaf sculpture was facilitated by Brown County sculptor and metal artist Jim Connor. Johnson and Connor had spent some time together making art pieces.“ Magnus and I had been talking about doing a veteran art program, and I had heard in town that there was kind of a concept for a sculpture,” Connor said.
The marketing company Three Sixty Group came up with the idea of a landmark leaf sculpture for the Nashville Arts and Entertainment Commission. At the same time, Elder Heart was approaching the commission to let them know they were interested in working on a major piece for the county.
Connor said,“ It was just an idea, but we grabbed hold of it, because we thought leaves and Brown County is a really good fit.”
photo by Sara Dawdy photo by Sara Dawdy The project involved building a consensus among town leaders and other interested parties.
“ Brown County has a rich history. People live here because they want to be here— because it’ s beautiful, because it’ s different, because it’ s special. There are a lot of elected officials, committees, and groups that are ambassadors for that. They were worried about all these different things, so it was more of a process than I would’ ve liked— but not negative,” said Johnson.“ There’ s been a couple of sidetracks, but some men and women, almost from nothing, created this huge social-impact art piece.
The 15-foot tower of giant, interlocked maple leaves is made of solid half inch and three-eighths inch thick A36 structural steel donated by the Kroot Corporation of Columbus. Local mural painter Larry Webb is offering his skills to color the leaves with automotive paint.
The plates for the biggest leaves at the base of the installation were cut out from 720-pound pieces. All of the steel plates were trucked to a plate-rolling facility in Indianapolis to be curved and hauled back to Brown County to be cut into leaf shapes.
“ I wanted some really nice curves in those big heavy plates in order to make it look like it was alive, to make it look real,” Connor said.“ The details are built up with wire-feed welding. We laid those out and just used a decorative weld to build up the veins.”
Johnson praised Connor for his choices in getting from a proposed concept to a finished piece.
“ That sculpture is alive,” he said.“ It’ s got space. It’ s got dimension. It’ s got flow. It’ s heavy duty, but completely one hundred percent safe and structurally sound.”
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