Did you know that if you look closely at the head of a sunflower, it’s actually made up of hundreds of small flowers growing together?
Local artist Gerry Moll knows that, and that is why he sees the sunflower as the perfect floral celebration of Labor Day. For the past few years, Moll has embarked on what he calls the Labor Day Sunflower Project culminating in a giant public art installation in downtown Knoxville.
It all started with a simple idea that came to Moll one Labor Day morning seven years ago.
“I just woke up and started thinking about this holiday and how it was really a great thing — honoring the idea of labor,” Moll said. “I was thinking more broadly and just the idea of work and how that’s what sustains us and how that should be celebrated.”
To celebrate, Moll took sunflowers from his front yard and wove them into a circle on a chain link fence in his neighborhood. Over the next few years, more and more of Moll’s neighbors and friends joined in on the project until the circle of sunflowers finally outgrew the neighborhood fence.
From there, Moll took his project to the downtown art emporium and finally to its current location, Krutch Park alongside Gay Street downtown. However, Moll’s project has grown in more than just sheer size; the core of the project is in community involvement.
“Since it’s about our collective work, it makes sense that the project has evolved to be a collective work in itself,” Moll said. “One of the main ways that we do that is through a grower’s program.”
From the sunflower heads used in the exhibit, volunteers shake out seeds and winnow out the organic material before packaging them for distribution. Individual residences and community gardens grow these seeds and harvest their flowers for next year’s installation.
This year, the McClung Museum stepped in to distribute seeds through their gift shop. The museum connected the installation with their botanical exhibit and will be hosting Moll for a lecture this Thursday in the museum auditorium.
Lindsey Wainwright, coordinator of academic programs at McClung, originally reached out to Moll after talking with him at a booth where he gave away seeds at a farmer’s market.
“He’s also going to be talking about how this project, this collaborative project, fits within a larger tradition of community-based art: artists working with and creating works with the community and involving the community,” Wainwright said. “It’s going beyond the walls of the gallery and the museum in order to engage with these larger issues of agricultural and labor and collective good.”
Moll elaborated with his definition of public art as, “art that is generated from a public need,” and when asked if Knoxville is a good place for artists, Moll had an interesting reply.
“Sometimes people ask me is Knoxville a good place for artists and I always felt a little strange about that question,” Moll said. “I knew what they meant — is there a good support structure for artists and can you make a living making art? I kind of come at it from another angle, and I think it’s a valuable angle and a valuable angle for students. Is there a need for what I do?”
A mindset of community activism is what Wainwright and Moll hope for students to gain from the lecture.
“As university students, we aren’t just learning skills to get a job,” Wainwright said. “We are learning how to be part of our own community, and right now even if students are in Knoxville just for their four years or five years or however many years at UT, to make the most of those years I think that engaging with the community and other entities off campus is really going to make their experience richer.”
Gerry Moll will give a lecture on Thursday, Aug. 27th at 5:15 p.m. at the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture.
People enjoyed last year's Labor Day Sunflower Project. The project is an annual art event where people come together with their sunflowers.
