See Rock City, Painterly
by Marcy Wielfaert
Title
See Rock City, Painterly
Artist
Marcy Wielfaert
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
This one brings back memories of my family traveling south from our home in Michigan to see my grandparents in Kentucky during my childhood. I remember so well sitting in my spot, in the back seat behind my dad with my sister in her seat to my right and Mom in front of her. We never, ever changed our seating arrangement! I saw barn after barn with the "See Rock City" ads and hoped we would get to go there some day. There was a certain mystique about this location that made me long to see why it was so great that everyone wanted it on their barn. I remember asking Dad about it and he said that it probably really wasn't anything spectacular, but that the barn owners had let the painters do that only because they were getting their barns painted for free, not because Rock City was so wonderful. I secretly knew, though, that it really was something amazing and one of these days, I was going to go there! After taking this picture recently, I did a little research and found that over 900 barns in nineteen states were painted just like this one between 1935 and 1969, to draw attention to the tourist attraction in in Lookout Mountain, Georgia that opened in 1932. Supposedly, you can stand there and actually see seven states, although that has been disputed over the years, especially since air pollution has reduced the clarity of the distant views. In 2007 when asked to prove this claim, a University of Tennessee professor concluded that it could not be done. It's funny that I ended up moving this close to the famous Rock City after I grew up and had my family, but I still have never been there. Kind of a shame, really. I may have to fulfill that childhood dream soon...
Uploaded
May 5th, 2020
Statistics
Viewed 1,627 Times - Last Visitor from New York, NY on 04/17/2024 at 8:51 AM
Embed
Share
Sales Sheet
