Stillness And Growth...at the Garden

For the last more than a decade, the Atlanta Botanical Garden has been nothing but growth, and I'm not just talking about the plants. But that's not what I wanted to share right now. Tonight, I'm feeling a little nostalgic.

"Stillness And Growth", Atlanta Botanical Garden

"Stillness and Growth" is a Georgia White Marble sculpture that used to adorn the main entrance to the Atlanta Botanical Garden. The sculpture is still in the same place...but the entrance moved a few years back. Fortunately, there are a couple of places from within the Garden where you can still enjoy this remarkable work of art.

The eight-foot sculpture was carved onsite by Paul Popple of Florence, Italy, and donated to the Garden by sisters Mary Goddard Pickens and Elkin Goddard Alston in memory of their grandmother, Mary Ruse Nicolson and their mother, Mary Nicolson Goddard.

Want to catch a glimpse of this beauty? You can see it from the Perennial Garden, as well as from mid-point crossing Flower Bridge leading to the two-acre Children's Garden.

I always loved this piece and it's been a part of the Garden since 1986, the year before I started visiting. I hope it'll always be part of the Atlanta Botanical Garden...and who knows, maybe it'll eventually find a new home in a more visible place in the Garden one day. No, no, I've not heard anything...just wishful thinking.

ATLANTApix: Georgia Marble

Georgia Capitol Museum (Georgia marble)

Did you know that the world-famous statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. was made from Georgia marble? It was! As were the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, the East Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., and the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta.

You can learn facts similar to these on a free tour of the Georgia Capitol Building, specifically in the Georgia Capitol Museum on the fourth floor.

The four columns pictured here, each made of Georgia marble, with their intricately carved Corinthian capitals, have been part of the museum collection since at least 1909. Left to right, the marbles represented here are: white Cherokee marble, Etowah pink marble solar gray marble, and white Georgia marble.

And speaking of where the Governor works, did you know that it was on this day in 1995 that Governor Zell Miller designated the peach as the official Georgia state fruit?

ATLANTApix of the tourATLANTA blog features a "photo-of-the-day" of Atlanta. Come back tomorrow for a new one!