From a distance, it appeared that a large sun was smiling over Krutch Park. A closer look, however, revealed the bright yellow sun to be hundreds of sunflowers, woven together by participants in this year’s Labor Day Sunflower Project.
Shelagh Leutwiler, a local gardener and artist, got involved with the Sunflower Project four years ago after crossing paths with Gerry Moll, one of the project’s co-founders. Leutwiler works as the gardener for the Consulate of Slovenia where many of the sunflowers used in Monday’s event were grown.
“The cool thing about this project is that as we grow the flowers and we put them up, they get dried out and we distribute the seeds the next year so then more people can grow them,” Leutwiler said. “It started as a small operation, but it’s spreading throughout Knoxville.”
Leutwiler sees the focus on celebrating labor and community involvement as part of the project’s appeal. A temporary work of art, the structure will eventually be taken down. However, Leutwiler appreciates how even the public’s short exposure to the work can bring more participants the following year.
“It’s only up for a little while, but then next year, people who hear about it now or see it this year, they can come to the Farmer’s Market next year and get seeds and get flowers and get excited about helping out in the future,” Leutwiler emphasized. “The idea is a celebration of labor that everybody can participate in.”
Vine Middle Magnet School also shared their sunflower art at the event. Dorothy Verbick, the school’s art teacher, wanted her school to have a more active presence in the community and contacted Moll about allowing some of her students’ art to be displayed on Monday.
Bringing sunflowers from her personal garden into her classroom, Verbick talked to her students about how Vincent van Gogh could take something right in front of him and express his interpretation of what he was seeing on a page, encouraging the students to do the same. Verbick wanted each artwork to be “different and unique like every sunflower,” and gave the middle schoolers free artistic range.
At noon, the Circle Modern Dance organization gathered in the center of Krutch Park to perform a structured, improvisational dance about the planting, harvesting and weaving of the sunflowers that characterized the event. Each group member created a movement inspired by the three actions and improvised these motions within the structure of the dance.
Mary Alford, core member of Circle Modern Dance, found herself tearing up as she talked about how it feels to belong to a “pretty unique and wonderful community” following the dance.
“I grew up with dirt under my fingernails, so this kind of stuff is huge to me — community and planting,” Aflord said. “It feels great. It makes me so happy despite the tears. They’re tears of joy. Anytime you have community and growing and the fact that these sunflower seeds were handed out year after year and people bring the sunflowers that they grew from the seeds that were harvested the year before. It’s like a continuing thing.”
An artist herself, Leutwiler does printmaking and puppetry, which she says is for the public and is supposed to be fun. She stressed the importance of public art, particularly art with audience participation, and how such work celebrates the part each community member plays in supporting the whole group.
“It’s culmination of all the work that we’ve all done together to grow these sunflowers and to harvest them,” Leutwiler said. “I think it’s just a beautiful culmination of gardening, art, public participation, celebration of labor and just a culmination of a whole season worth of work.”
