Lower Lobby Gallery
Photography by Mary Atwood
November 6 – February 28
All too often we think of “history” as nothing more than a recitation of names, dates, and places associated with the stories of battles and wars which changed the physical boundaries of states or nations.
The goal of the First Coast Reflections exhibit is to bring a more personal perspective to the history of the North Florida and Southeast Georgia area. The works in this collection focus on intimate vignettes from the historic homes and workplaces of the people who settled this region. The subject matter ranges from the very simple homes of the early Spanish settlers of St. Augustine to the ruins of the elegant Carnegie mansion on Cumberland Island, and from seventeenth century architecture of the Castillo de San Marcos to the nineteenth century engineering of the Bouleware Springs Waterworks of Gainesville.
Many of the images in this collection focus on simple activities such as the cooking Iva Chesser did at her wood burning in the small kitchen of her Okefenokee Swamp homestead, the making of lace by the Sisters of St. Joseph at the Father O’Reilly house in St. Augustine, and the writing of Marjorie Kennan Rawlings first novel from her Cross Creek bedroom while recovering from malaria.