These links tell about all the construction work happening around Diana's installation of tiles on Mill Race Bridge. James is shooting almost every move that she makes. Thanks for helping us document this exceptional example of public art support.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Borglum-Studio-renovation-nearing-completion-1716039.php

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/golf/article/Texas-Golf-Hall-of-Fame-getting-its-dream-home-1403998.php

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/golf/article/Penick-statue-donated-to-Texas-Golf-Hall-of-Fame-1344520.php

Diana’s still building and firing tile panels for Mill Race Bridge, on the theme “History of Brackenridge Golf Course.” Here’s a bit more of that history.

3. Brackenridge Park’s Golf Course

The new park wasn’t open long before city fathers decided to add a municipal golf course. So in 1915 they hired an up-and-coming golf course architect, A.W. Tillinghast to design one of the first courses in Texas. Here’s what’s good about it, according to an article on the Golf Channel website:

This centrally located gem, which played host to the Texas Open from 1922 to 1959 (with the exception of a couple of years) was brought back to life in 2008 with a $7.5 million renovation. …

It's easy to get caught up in Brackenridge Park's place in Texas golf lore. After all, the names that have competed here are legendary: Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, and Arnold Palmer, just to name a few. What's really important is that golfers in San Antonio have a rare opportunity to play an A.W. Tillinghast classic.

Tillinghast, of course, is the same guy who designed great venues like Winged Foot, Bethpage Black and Baltusrol Golf Club, to name a few. And when Colligan Design Group restored Brackenridge, it did so with great care to preserve both bunker shapes and green complexes. Using old routing plans transposed over modern aerial photos, John Colligan and design associate Trey Kemp worked to bring back the original look of most of the holes. Unfortunately, they couldn't bring back the original holes 15-18 because those holes were moved a few decades ago because of a road project [Rte 281 -ed].

"If we do our job," Colligan said, "no one would know we were involved. They will think that Tilly had just finished the project."

Well, not exactly, and we have modern technology to thank for that. New mini-verde grass on the greens assures better putting surfaces. High-grade sand does the same for the bunkers, and the old common Bermuda in the fairways was replaced with a modern Tif-sport Bermuda.

Back from the old days, however, are the flat-bottom bunkers with steep grass faces, rectangular-shaped greens and straight lined fairway mowing patterns. The greens are also small, so a good short game is a must at Brackenridge Park Golf Course. If you manage to hit the greens, though, there are lots of birdie opportunities.

Excerpted from http://www.golfchannel.com/news/travel-articles/old-brackenridge-park-golf-course-is-better-than-ever-in-san-antonio/ 

4. San Antonio Roots of the Mount Rushmore Faces

Looking out on the 17th hole of the golf course is Brackenridge’s pump house, which since its abandonment has taken on a new identity as The Borglum Studio. Around 1924, the building was rented out to sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who had been commissioned by the San Antonio Trail Drivers association to create a commemorative sculpture. According to an article on the Texas Public Radio website:

Borglum's granddaughter, Robin Borglum Carter Kennedy … describes how Borglum came to San Antonio for a commission by the Trail Drivers Association. He'd just left Atlanta in frustration. There, he was going to carve the Confederate cavalry into Stone Mountain, with Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis in the center.

"It turned out that all the money in Atlanta at that time belonged to the members of the Ku Klux Klan, and … when he realized that all the money was going to the Klan, or a lot of the money was going to the Klan rather than to the carving, he smashed up his models and left Georgia with sheriff close behind," said Kennedy. 

Kennedy says her grandfather fell in love with San Antonio. "So he wired his wife and said, 'Come immediately. We're going to move to San Antonio.'" He, his wife Mary and two children made a home within the Menger Hotel.

At his studio in Brackenridge Park, Borglum worked on his preliminary designs and models of the four presidents represented on Mount Rushmore. In addition to this, Borglum created statues of Brigadier General John Campbell Greenway from Arizona and Georgia's Governor Alexander Stephens. Borglum remained in the studio until 1937 when he left San Antonio to work on the actual carving of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

Excerpted from http://www.junkworthknowing.com/history/mount_rushmores_story

http://tpr.org/news/2011/04/news1104221.html

to be concluded…

Brackenridge Park’s history is wide-ranging and surprising. Longhorns were once a fixture watering at San Antonio Springs. At the time of the Chisholm Trail in the mid-late 1800s, this area was sited at the city’s northern outskirts. Let’s take a virtual trail ride, meandering past some of the significant points: Blue Hole & Pump House now; Golf Course, Trail Drivers Museum, & Borglum Studio in future posts. Diana's unfired clay portraits of the city fathers will illustrate.

1. San Antonio Springs AKA The Blue Hole

Prehistoric artifacts found near San Antonio Springs and in the Olmos Basin area point to a long history of occupation by native Americans.  Paleo-Indian projectile points over 11,000 years old have been found …. The first Spaniards known to have visited the Springs were members of a 1691 expedition led by Domingo Teran de los Rios and Father Damian Massanet.  On June 13 of that year they pitched camp alongside a group of friendly Payaya Indians at the River's headwaters.  It happened to be the day of Saint Anthony of Padua, and they named the spot San Antonio de Padua.

The area came to be known as the Head of the River, and it was apparently an important route in and out of San Antonio.  Sketch maps by David Orchard show a deeply worn old buffalo trail that descended into the Olmos Basin near the east end of the dam, and the Camino Real from Mexico to east Texas entered San Antonio here ….

Excerpted from: http://www.edwardsaquifer.net/saspring.html

The prolific springs were harnessed in 1885 by George W. Brackenridge’s San Antonio Water Works to provide clean water to city inhabitants. Eventually water flow was diminished by artesian wells drilled at Edwards Aquifer, making the pump house he built obsolete.

Brackenridge offered his land for a public park at the turn of the century.

2. Brackenridge gives Waterworks as parkland

... In 1852, the City of San Antonio at public auction sold a quantity of land that had been marked off in lots on the Giraud survey map of the same year. Lots 30 and 31 at the Head of the River (in Range 1, District 2) went to Alderman James R. Sweet. City Engineer Giraud urged the city not to sell this property, since Lot 31 allegedly embraced "the North Springs," the main source of San Antonio's water supply. …

Sweet built a stone house on Lot 31, now part of the Incarnate Word grounds, and it became known as the "Old Sweet Place." By 1859 his holdings grew to include five other lots for a total of 108 acres.  In 1869 the entire acreage was sold to Isabella H. Brackenridge, mother of George W. Brackenridge, for $4,500. Shortly after Brackenridge's purchase, the question of who should own the Head of the River became a controversial and emotional one. 

George W. Brackenridge was also a civic leader and philanthropist, and he believed the city should own the Springs…. Brackenridge offered 217 acres, including the Sweet property and adjoining acreage that he owned, to the city for $50,000, providing the city would "never again sell the headwaters." …

[I]n 1877, the city gave a contract to J. B. LaCoste and his associates for supplying the city with water from the Head of the River.  The San Antonio Water Supply Company built a raceway and a pumphouse on Brackenridge's property a half-mile below the Blue Hole, and a reservoir was constructed on the hill near the eastern end of Mahncke Park, where the San Antonio Botanical Center is located today. …

By the late 1890's, flows at San Antonio Springs had been drastically reduced by the drilling of numerous additional Edwards [Aquifer artesian] wells and a long drought. Brackenridge could not watch it happen, nor do anything about it, so he determined to dispose of his property. …

Brackenridge sold 280 acres including the San Antonio Springs to the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word for $120,000, and in 1899 his Water Works Company donated 343.73 acres of land for the establishment of Brackenridge Park.

Excerpted from: http://www.edwardsaquifer.net/saspring.html

To be continued...

Hold an unfolding piece of San Antonio history in your hands. And at the same time feel great about supporting our video project.

Diana “Living a Potter’s Dream” documents a talented woman’s first important public art commission. Her Catalpa-Pershing Bridge Reconstruction designs will make San Antonio’s historic Brackenridge Park more beautiful for a century to come. And you can be a part of the story.

Getting your piece of the action is easy. Pledge $100: choose one 5x7 tile, hand-built by Diana, and branded to either:

• Mulberry Street Bridge—a grown-up Gulf Coast toad sports color-coordinated glazing on the “Life-Cycle” panels.
  
• Mill Race Bridge—the iconic little golfer-man can also be seen on the 1916-era weathervane that graces “Old Brack’s” Golf Course clubhouse  
  

Pledge $250+: make a pair, your choice. 

You won’t be charged unless we meet our funding goal in full before Sept. 15. But you won’t be sorry you acted now. Your pledge right now tells the world that you believe in us, and they should, too. Thanks for your support! 

James the filmmaker says: When I started shooting Diana in 2011, she was still involved with urban planners of the city's bond-funded $1.4 million Catalpa Pershing Bridge Project. This Trailer opens with one of many meetings Diana had--with everyone from concerned neighbors, to builders & architects, to arts administrators--to create art for their pair of rebuilt bridges.  

Even though it's now complete and open to traffic, Mulberry Street Bridge was a building site when I shot this Trailer. You see the nitty-gritty work Diana did on this one bridge. Hustling so her 24 ceramic panels could be installed before construction scaffolding was taken down, Diana and assistant Sara tag-teamed to get the clay shapes assembled, double-glazed with cobalt blue and chartreuse clay slip, then Diana's favorite turquoise treatment to withstand the elements. They cut apart and labeled every panel, fired them, and hauled 1.25 tons of tiles to the site in jig-saw pieces for installation.  

Diana's large tile bas-reliefs of lively Gulf Coast Toads now attract both children and the kid in all of us. We see tales of amphibian egg “tape” floating in the river, several ages of tadpoles, “froglets,” and adults licking their toady chops at insect meal choices. 

Both Diana and I have moved on to the second bridge, Mill Race, with its golf motif. You can see that process unfolding on the other Trailer on the Main Kickstarter tab. I'm going to re-cut all of this footage and much more for the full-length documentary. Thanks again for being part of our project with your good wishes and funding help.