When the sculpture’s donor, UT alumnus Wilton D. “Chick” Hill, sees “A Startling Whirlwind of Opportunity,” nestled in the middle of the Pedestrian Mall, he thinks of meeting his wife and how a minute-and-a-half conversation led an engineering student to a career in the hotel business.
Hill spoke of how many different paths one can take in life, paths that he or she didn’t necessarily expect to take, at the sculpture’s dedication on Friday morning.
The dedication itself took place at an unexpected location, inside the Clarence Brown Theatre, after rain chased the ceremony from the Pedestrian Mall.
“When Alice (Aycock) made her presentation and started talking about this whirlwind … it was no question who we (the deciding committee) wanted to go with,” Hill said. “And when I saw that, I thought to myself: That’s exactly what I had in mind.”
Hill called “opportunity” the most meaningful word of the sculpture’s title to him. He described how serving as the bellman at an all-female dormitory on campus led him to meeting his future wife and carrying her luggage.
“When I peered into her car, when she and her parents and sister drove up here, I thought to myself: Well, I really made the right choice coming to this university,” he said.
And as a graduating engineering student, a short conversation with the head of the department led to him entering his vocation, altering the course of his life.
A representative from the Holiday Inn came to the university, looking to hire an engineering student. Hill got the job and he’s spent 36 years in the hotel business in Memphis.
“I think about that conversation weekly, and that one conversation, which I say was about a minute and a half, steered me in a direction that I never knew existed,” Hill said. “And so that’s the opportunity the university provided me, and I’ll never forget that.”
Thinking about those conversations and those years spent walking the campus of the university is what led Hill to seek out yet another opportunity — the chance to donate money for a public art piece at the university to symbolize the coming-of-age process.
In the same way, sculpture artist Alice Aycock said her life took unexpected turns, and she said she hoped the piece would capture that “topsy-turvy journey.”
Aycock told the assembled crowd at the dedication, which included art history students, how an art history and studio art class she took at Rutgers University in the 1960s changed her from an aspiring writer to an aspiring artist.
“I just fell into a class in which I was studying art history for three hours and then doing studio work for three hours,” she said. “And they were trying to make a relationship between ideas in art history and studio and the thinking and the making.”
While her failure to get into other colleges was the reason she ended up attending Rutgers, it led to her realizing her career aspirations, she said.
“It was just this wonderful coincidence that brought me to that school, which had a terrific art faculty,” Aycock said. “… I know what it’s like to go to school and be confused and be unhappy. I was trying to transfer. I was calling my mother every other night, and then, all of a sudden, boom, everything just fell into place.”
Susan Martin, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, said the Hill family would receive a portrait of the piece and a plaque would be installed near the sculpture recognizing the Hills’ donation, Aycock and the date of dedication.
Martin said the piece conveys the existence of possibilities at the university.
“I think she has captured the spirit of what we do here at the University of Tennessee in affording opportunity broadly to our students perfectly,” Martin said.
The piece is creating enthusiasm on the campus, Martin said, and it is a welcome addition.
“And now that we’re all acquainted with this piece, I very much look forward to beginning a process of getting to know it better,” she said. “And I look forward to interacting with our students as they begin to understand the meaning of the piece and think about life’s journey and the many turns it takes.”
Hill said he hopes the piece becomes a part of the university that students reference.
“I hope students here someday say, ‘We’ll meet at the ‘Whirlwind,’’” he said.