In the southeast corner of Atlanta’s West End Park stands a lofty steel sculpture, which remained, until recently, weathered and anonymous.
Its colors long since faded due to year’s of weathering, this sculpture was fabricated in 1979 for the City of Atlanta, and it was de-accessioned from the City’s Public Art Collection during the 1990s.
The Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs recently restored and reinstituted this piece into the City’s Public Art Collection once again, in congruence with this year’s ELEVATE festival, highlighting public art within Atlanta’s West End neighborhood. This restored artwork was included in a walking art tour developed for this year’s ELEVATE.
The 24-foot-tall sculpture suffered severe paint flaking and cracking along the main structure while the upper cable wire began to break and rust away. The sculpture’s restoration was performed in early October by Jeffry Loy, a local artist, blacksmith, and art conservator. Jeffry removed the preexisting paint and repaired the mechanism. He also primed and painted the sculpture with fresh color, renewing the sculpture’s appearance with an effect that ripples out to the entirety of West End Park and the surrounding neighborhood.