William Lloyd Garrison Memorial Redesign

Commonwealth Ave Redesign

William Lloyd Garrison Memorial

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INTRODUCTION This collaborative project was designed by Andy Caira, Grace Griffin, Leanna Rodriguez, and Helene Graham in an Art History class entitled “Boston Memorials Revisited and Reimagined: Public Art and Virtual Modeling.” Throughout the course, we studied memorials in the Boston Common, Public Garden, and along Commonwealth Avenue in preparation for the redesign. Our project is focused around the William Lloyd Garrison

memorial, redesigning it while considering historical context, issues of maintenance and conservation, and in conjunction with the women’s memorial. In htis booklet we outline our design process, as well as how we accounted for maintenance issues an. There are also brief sections on William Lloyd Garrison’s biography and the Women’s Memorial on Commonwealth Avenue. We hope you enjoy!

From the artists, Andy Caira Helene Graham Grace Griffin Leanna Rodriguez

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ABOUT WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

William Lloyd Garrison was both in 1805 in Newburyport, MA and dedicated his life’s work to abolition activism. Founder and editor of The Liberator, a newspaper dedicated to issues of antislavery, Garrison gave speeches, wrote papers, and published articles promoting emancipation. In 1833, he founded the American Anti-Slavery Society. He was a pacifist known for radical ideas of equality—he saw the constitution as a way to further promote slavery, so he burned a copy of it at an abolitionist rally in 1854. Garrison attracted both supporters and adversaries with his reformist beliefs, and fell victim to pro-slavery violence as a result.

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“Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion.”

-Garrison

WOMEN’S MEMORIAL We drew inspiration from the women’s memorial also on Commonwealth Avenue in removing Garrison from his pedestal. We wanted to make the memorial more accessible to viewers and put Garrison on the same level as them. We also looked to the women’s memorial in terms of the podium; the women use their dismounted pedestals for other purposes like writing, reading, and leaning on. We created a podium for Garrison to stand behind because he was an orator, but we wanted to incorporate newspapers into the design to stray from the typical pedestal/podium trope.

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GARRISON FIRST CONCEPTS

Some of our preliminary designs attempted to center Garrison’s work and legacy over his personal image. In one design, we removed Garrison entirely and included representational objects in his place

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MAINTENANCE ISSUE When tackling this redesign, we paid special attention to the idea of conservation of this piece. We considered weather as a factor; as the monument stands now, snow can pile up on Garrison and his desk, completely covering the statue. Aside from obscuring the work during snowy times, the water and runoff from the snow can damage the bronze statue and therefore require cleaning more often. To remedy this, we utilized the standing position to alleviate this issue of snow piling up on large horizontal surfaces. Also, the memorial has had issues of vandalism and viewers trying to break off small pieces of the monument, such as Garrison’s pen. While we still wanted to incorporate the pen and his glasses into the redesign, we placed them instead on the stacks of newspaper complete secured to the bronze, more of a relief on the surface than a sole object so they could not be removed.

“A great national effort is needed to preserve the great legacy of contemporary public art.” from “Introduction”

by Hafthor Yngvason

Photo by Pat Greenhouse

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GARRISON MEMORIAL REDESIGN

Olin Levi Warner. William Lloyd Garrison. 1886. Bronze

When thinking about the design of our memorial, we discussed the role of Garrison himself in the memorial. As it exists now, Garrison sits behind a desk upon a pedestal. We knew that we wanted to take him off the pedestal in whichever design idea we ended up pursuing. We hoped that by removing his figure from the pedestal, we could make the monument more accessible to viewers. In our final design, Garrison is standing instead of sitting in order to make him more approachable and accessible. We still wanted some type of pedestal to represent him as an orator, but we opted for the newspaper stacks around him to act as a podium and to represent his work on The Liberator.

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The newspaper stacks acts to incorporate text into the memorial to give context to Garrison and his work without including a traditional plaque or inscription. Through the headlines we wrote and the quotes we chose, we tried to capture an encompassing picture of Garrison’s life: an abolitionist, a speaker, and a pacifist. The rope on the ground in the memorial is meant to represent Garrison as a highly-prosecuted figure for his radical anti-slavery beliefs.

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Works Cited Yngvason, Hafthor. “Introduction.” Conservation and Maintenance of Contemporary Public Art. Ed. by Yngvason.

London: Aerchetype Publications (in association with Cambridge Arts Council, Cambridge, MA,) 2002.

Friends of the Public Garden. Strategic Plan 2014-2018.

Thomas, John L. “William Lloyd Garrison.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 20 May 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/William-Lloyd-Garrison.