art

If you’ve been following along on our social media in the last few days, you may have noticed our Road Trip! series took us to Ochlocknee. Our final stop for the day was at Pope’s Museum, a site dedicated to telling the story of Laura Pope Forrester and displaying over 200 pieces of sculpture and paintings she created to honor the men and women she admired. So who was Laura Pope Forrester, and just what was so special about her as to create a museum of work?

Laura Cordelia Atkinson was born on January 31, 1873 around the burgeoning town of Ochlocknee. When she was a child, her mother taught her to model clay and use berries to make paints and dyes. She attended a nearby school for her formal education which was conducted by Benjamin Hill Pope (1856-1911), a man almost twenty years her senior and her future husband whom she married in 1894. They moved into the one-story house that is now Pope’s Museum in the community of Spence (once part of Thomas County before being assigned to Grady in 1905). Ben opened a store across the street from their home while Laura took care of the house and their growing family of four.

Having a live-in maid to help with domestic tasks allowed Laura enough free time to work on her creative endeavors. Using what art skills she learned from her mother and her appreciation for history and literature, Laura’s creativity inspired her to honor the people and characters who shaped our nation; especially the women and veterans of wars.

Ben died in 1911 leaving Laura with two teenage sons to raise. In 1914, she married Julian Franklin Forester (1870-1949) who took over the family store allowing Laura to return to her artistic passions. These ideas manifested into paintings that covered every wall of her home, plaster statues that dotted her interior design, architectural embellishments on her house, and over 200 statues across the family’s property.

By the 1920s, her two sons were grown and ready to start lives of their own, and Laura was left in the same situation of many empty nesters who find themselves in need of something to keep them busy. With her extensive art collection at hand, she opened her doors to the public, creating Pope’s Museum, one of the earliest art environments in America. Her home was photographed by several local and national magazines further promoting her business and encouraging tourists and artists to visit. Even the Library of Congress sent a photographer down to record the interior of her home for posterity.

Laura continued operating the museum until her death in 1953 at the age of 80. One of her sons took over the stewardship of the museum with community help and kept the operation going until 1975. It was sold into private ownership, and the house was rented out as apartments, complete with the landlord special – a thick layer of paint hiding away the murals that covered the walls of Laura’s home. After decades of neglect and abandonment, the current owners have revitalized the property and are working to restore as much of Laura’s art as possible.

That was where we found ourselves in the timeline of this museum’s history last Saturday. Michelle Dean, executive director, guided our group through the house while telling us about Laura’s story, the history of the home, and her efforts to restore this local treasure. Her work to recover Laura’s art and story has led her through multiple archives and even the estate sale of a major movie executive who had collected one of Laura’s paintings. What Michelle has not been able to retrieve (yet!) she has displayed in interpretive panels throughout the house.

Speaking of retrieving, we arrived under very special circumstances, as just the night before our trip, Michelle received four “lost” statues from Laura’s collection. The pieces had made their way out west under mysterious circumstances, but despite their unplanned journey, they have arrived home where Michelle hopes to have them restored. The works include Laura’s bust of Queen Marie of Romania, “Death With A Smile at Ninety” (part of her Footprints of Time series), part of a vase, and the form of a baby resting on its mother’s shoulder taken from her larger piece “Cupid’s Pond.” Michelle also informed us there were thirteen of Laura’s paintings arriving at the museum in the near future.

If you’re interested in learning more about this fascinating artist, her works, and her impact on her community and the world, why not take a trip to see Pope’s Museum? Can’t get out there? Michelle has worked with Bloomberg Philanthropies and their new Bloomberg Connects App to provide a free, digital tour of the museum and grounds. No matter how you get there, this place is worth the trip!