Deep in Louisiana, bricklayer Hill crafts famed sculpture garden
A small girl looks at herself in a water-filled pond, part of a famed sculpture garden.
Hill settled on a small plot of land on Bayou Petit Callou in Chauvin, La., located southwest of New Orleans. The land was provided by a kindly neighbor who took an interest in Hill. The bricklayer pitched a tent, and in time, built a small home. He also showed an artistic bent on adjoining property along the bayou.
Over the years Hill created what is now known as one of the "25 Most Amazing Sculpture Gardens in the World." A cross-section of individual pieces shows Hill's empathy, and respect for religion. He is said to have created it as a story of salvation for Chauvin residents.
Dennis Sipiorski, an art professor at Nicholls State University (a Thibodaux, La., institution which eventually saved the site) asked Hill to expand on the site's meaning. "It's about living and life and everything I've learned," Hill said.
There are angels, a sculpture of Jesus Christ on the cross, warriors and cowboys on horseback. One telling piece is a small blond girl, bent over to look at herself in a pond. The latter sculpture was said to come to Hill in the dream a night before he crafted it.
The garden is dominated by a 45-foot tall lighthouse that includes 7,000 bricks. Figures cling to the outside of the lighthouse, such as soldiers, angels, God and Hill, himself.
According to "The Mysterious Man of Bayou Petit Callou," by John Kemp and published in 2014 in Louisiana Life magazine, Hill used steel reinforcements bars, or rebar steel, sunk into the ground, covered in wire mesh. He welded and formed the steel mesh into desired forms, and covered the figures in concrete before painting them. He used a fork and large spoon for details on the sculptures.
This is an example of Folk Art at its finest, and fortunately, the Kohler Foundation of Wisconsin recognized value in the sculptures. The foundation gave $500,000 to restore the artwork and build a visitors' center, among other improvements.
We found the garden by following road signs on a recent trip to rural Louisiana. Suggested by a resident, we were impressed by the quality and expanse of the public art. Thank goodness there were others who appreciated the natural talent of a reclusive bricklayer, and took steps to preserve the site for the public.
According to the magazine article, Hill was married and had a family in Louisiana. In 2000 the kindly landowner died, and Terrebonne Parish officials moved to evict the bricklayer. Hill sat on the steps of his home a few days, and then disappeared as quickly as he'd come, more than a decade earlier.
It is suggested that Hill may live in Arkansas. It is anyone's guess as to what he now thinks of his sculpture, being saved for the ages by Nicholls State University personnel.
For more information: https://www.nicholls.edu/folkartcenter/
The magazine article, readers' view: http://www.myneworleans.com/Louisiana-Life/July-August-2014/The-Mysterious-Man-of-Bayou-Petit-Caillou/
Below: More photos of the sculpture garden (Hill crafted himself on the pony, and the tower is in the background of that shot ...
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