Last Friday afternoon a dedication ceremony was held in Chauvin to commemorate the completion of the Chauvin Sculpture garden project. Attending the ceremony were officials from the Kohler Foundation, the organization that supported the project.
Over three years ago, Dennis Sioporski, Professor from the Nicholls School of Fine Arts, saw the sculpture garden in Chauvin for the first time.
The unique body of work was done by a local bricklayer named Kenneth Hill, an enigmatic and elusive man who sculpted around 100 large figures from cement within a 12-year period.
The imagery abundant in Hill’s art is mostly biblical, relating to the artist’s spirituality. Angels with swords abound in the garden and pathways with mysterious symbols adorn the ground. There is also Christ on the cross, lost souls and the gates of hell.
However, not all of the pieces are signs of spiritual redemption and armegeddon. There is a 50-foot tall lighthouse with a relief dedicated to American culture. It is adorned with cowboys and Indians, the raising of the red white and blue at Iwo Jima, New Orleans style Jazz bands and bikini-clad women.
Hill’s work is defined as folk art, which is also sometimes labeled outsider or naive art. The artists who are categorized as folk artists are untrained, not formally schooled in the arts. They are often inspired by deeply personal visions. Folk art has a strong following in the art world, with numerous galleries and journals dedicated to the subject.
Soon Hill could no longer pay his bills and was evicted from the property. No one knows of his current whereabouts.
The goal of the $500,000 project was to restore Hill’s work, which involved sealing cracks and placing together broken pieces. The rennovation was overseen by local architect Marcel Fournet.
The Kohler foundation, which is related to the Kohler company that specialized in plumbing, got involved when Sioporksi was looking for someone to support the project. The organization has been a notable supporter of folk art, and family member ruth Kohler oversees the Kohler art center.
“Ruth kohler who ran the kohler art center, who restored around ten sites in Wisconsin, was the principal one who pushed this,” Sioporski said.
For the last three years all involved have been working to complete the project, and Kohler Foundation officials have reported that folk art admirers around the world have been calling to find out when the project was going to be completed so they could visit the site.
“It is rare to find this much work done by someone who was so isolated these days with such quality,” Sioporski said.
“Ruth Kohler said this is one of the most of the premiere sites of the United States. It was impressive in content, scale, length of time and number of pieces.”
To everyone’s satisfaction, the project is now going through its final stages and the dedication ceremony was held.
“For the last three years we have been working on the Kenny Hill site trying to get it finished. Finished means restored. The property’s rennovated, the visitors center is built,” Sioporski said.
“We have been trying to get all of that to come to an end. So Friday the Kohler executives flew down from Kohler, Wisconsin. They opened the site by cutting a ribbon at the site itself,” he said.
Also at the dedication ceremony were representaives from the governor’s office, Senator Geautreaux, president of Terrebone parish Bobby Bergeron, and Dr. Ayo represented Nicholls.
Zydeco musician Waylon Thibodaux played at the ceremony as well.
“Waylon Thibodaux’s family owned the site and they donated it to Nicholls, so it was fitting that his band played. His father is in the band and his mother used to be the booking agent. It was a fun big circle,” Sioporski said.
Sioporski said that the weather could not have been better for the ceremony, and the cooperation between all of the different parties helped it to be quite an event.
“It was a beautiful day. David Boudreaux, vice president of the institute of advancement, went out of his way to make this happen,” Sioporski said.
“Dr. ayo pushed this and Mike Davis of Facilities and Planning got his maintainance guys to work like dogs, they were really troopers about it. Brenda Haskins did the food, and it recieved nothing but compliments.”
There was also an exhibition of 15 artists at the dedication ceremony.
“Each of those people were invited to send their work and a statement on what they thought of kennys work. Most were trained artists, they have background in the arts,” Sioporski said.
“However, there were a number of people in their own way were folk artists, like
Gary Lafleur in biology, who is a photographer. He is something of a folk artist cause he was not trained as an artist.”
“There is also man who worked at the Kohler company who is a wood carver, and we had my mother, who makes voodoo dolls, she was untrained. So the exhibition was a mix of trained and untrained artists,” he said.
Sioporski points out that Hill’s art and the Nicholls/Kohler involvement in the project is presented in the book “Rare Visions & Roadside Revelations,” published by Kansas City Star Books. The book is something of a travelogue documenting interesting folk art sites across the United States.
“This group is out of Kansas city. They came through and they were fascinated with Kenny’s work. This is the first book we have seen us in, and the work was on the front cover and back.,” Sioporski said.
“It was nice to see we were already in a book to help bring people to the site.