Amanda Matthews | |
|---|---|
 Amanda Matthews in studio | |
| Born | September 1, 1968 |
| Education | University of Louisville |
| Occupation(s) | Sculptor, painter, CEO of Prometheus Foundry |
| Spouse | Robert (Brad) Connell |
| Children | 2 |
Amanda Matthews (born 1968) is an American sculptor and painter from Louisville, Kentucky, United States, who lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
Amanda Matthews was born in 1968 in Louisville, Kentucky to James (Jim) Matthews III and Brenda Matthews. She attended Bullitt East High School in Mt. Washington, Kentucky and graduated in 1986. Matthews earned her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art with a minor in Philosophy from the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky in 1990. She studied abroad in Paris, France in 1989 with the University of Louisville, studying Fine Art and Architecture while abroad.
Matthews is known for her award-winning work that honors women and celebrates diversity and inclusion. She began her career as a painter and faculty member for the Louisville Visual Arts Association. She founded Wild Honeysuckle Studio in 1998, [1] which merged with Prometheus Bronze Foundry, LLC in 2009.[ citation needed ]
Matthews received her first grant as part of the Sister Cities International program and travelled to Mainz, Germany in 2006 to represent the City of Louisville, Kentucky and the United States during the tenure of Mayor Jerry Abramson. She participated in the Kunst in der Stadt, Kuenstlerarbeiten Public Exhibition at Gutenbergplatz, Mainz, Germany. Fourteen artists, two artists each from seven countries, were selected to participate. Her work while in Mainz was a permanent gift to the City of Mainz, Germany from the City of Louisville, KY.[ citation needed ] Later that year, she participated in the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth Appalachian Mountain Witness Tour for Artists and Writers in the fall of 2006, [2] which marked the beginning of her decades-long body of large scale bronze Dryads, titled Messengers. [3] In 2007, on Earth Day, she completed a 210' long Ephemeral Environmental Sculpture Installation, called Water is Life for the Louisville Zoo, an AZA and AAM Museum, with the help of 20 volunteers. Diane Heilenman, Visual Arts Critic for the Courier Journal stated, "The work, 'Water is Life,' fits the context of all her sculptures and paintings, which are often about environmental issues." [4]
In 2015, she founded the Artemis Initiative, an IRS approved 501(c)(3) Public Charity.[ citation needed ]
In 2018, her work honoring Alice Allison Dunnigan, the first African American female to receive White House and Congressional credentials, was unveiled at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. [5] The statue of Alice Dunnigan traveled extensively [6] and was featured for programming at Kentucky State University, University of Kentucky, and the Truman Presidential Library. [7] The bronze sculpture of Alice Dunnigan now permanently stands at the SEEK Museum in Russellville, KY, which was added to the United States civil rights trail in 2020. [8]
In 2019, she was selected to create a monumental sculptural installation titled, "The Girl Puzzle", in New York City on Roosevelt Island honoring investigative reporter Nellie Bly, which was planned to be unveiled in 2020, but due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, was completed and unveiled on December 10, 2021. [9] [10]
On November 14, 2021, at Kentucky's COVID-19 Memorial Ceremony to mourn the over 10,000 Kentuckians who lost their life to the COVID-19 Pandemic, it was announced that Matthews design proposal "United We Stand, Divided We Fall" (based on the Kentucky State Motto) [11] was chosen for the permanent Team KY COVID-19 Memorial Monument. [12] [13] [14]
Matthews is Nettie Depp’s great-great niece, and a bronze statue of Nettie created by Matthews was approved for display in the Kentucky Capitol. It is the first permanent large-scale monument of a woman inside that state capitol. While Nettie's influence was not statewide, the Historic Properties Advisory Commission considered her a representative example of Kentucky women who achieved professional and personal success. The statue’s unveiling occurred in November 2022. [15] [16]
The Kentucky State Capitol is located in Frankfort and is the house of the three branches of the state government of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Pompeo Luigi Coppini was an Italian born sculptor who emigrated to the United States. Although his works can be found in Italy, Mexico and a number of U.S. states, the majority of his work can be found in Texas. He is particularly famous for the Alamo Plaza work, Spirit of Sacrifice, a.k.a. The Alamo Cenotaph, as well as numerous statues honoring Texan figures, such as Lawrence Sullivan Ross, the fourth President of Texas A&M University.
Enid Yandell was an American sculptor from Louisville, Kentucky, who studied with Auguste Rodin in Paris, Philip Martiny in New York City, and Frederick William MacMonnies.
The United States Capitol features a central rotunda below the Capitol dome. Built between 1818 and 1824, it has been described as the Capitol's "symbolic and physical heart".
The John B. Castleman Monument, within the Cherokee Triangle of Louisville, Kentucky, was unveiled on November 8, 1913. The model, selected from a competition to which numerous sculptors contributed, was designed by R. Hinton Perry of New York. The statue was erected to honor John Breckinridge Castleman at a cost of $15,000 by popular subscription from city, state, and other commonwealths. The statue is made of bronze, and rests on a granite pedestal. It stands 15-feet high, with a base of 12×20 feet. The monument was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 17, 1997, as part of the Civil War Monuments of Kentucky MPS. There have been attempts to remove the statue since January 2019 due to the fact that Castleman was a Major of the Confederate army. The monument was removed on June 8, 2020, and is pending cleaning and relocation to Castleman's burial site.
The Confederate Monument in Owensboro, Ky., was a 16-foot-tall, two-part object — a 7-foot-tall bronze sculpture atop a 9-foot-tall granite pedestal — located at the southwest corner of the Daviess County Courthouse lawn, at the intersection of Third and Frederica Streets, in Owensboro, Kentucky. Nearly 122 years after the monument was dedicated in September 1900, the monument was dismantled in 2022, beginning with the removal of the sculpture in May 2022; the sculpture was placed in storage, pending a decision on what to do with it.
The Confederate Memorial in Nicholasville is a historic statue created in the Jim Crow era and located on the Jessamine County courthouse lawn in Nicholasville, Kentucky, ten miles south of Lexington, Kentucky.
The Abraham Lincoln Statue is a historic statue in the Hodgenville Commercial Historic District's public square in Hodgenville, Kentucky. Adolph Alexander Weinman sculpted the statue, as he also did the Lincoln statue at the capitol rotunda at Frankfort, Kentucky. The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park is nearby.
Alice Allison Dunnigan was an American journalist, civil rights activist and author. Dunnigan was the first African-American female correspondent to receive White House credentials, and the first black female member of the Senate and House of Representatives press galleries. She wrote an autobiography entitled Alice A. Dunnigan: A Black Woman's Experience. She is commemorated by an official Kentucky Historical Society marker.
Zenos Frudakis, known as Frudakis, is an American sculptor whose diverse body of work includes monuments, memorials, portrait busts and statues of living and historic individuals, military subjects, sports figures and animal sculpture. Over the past four decades he has sculpted monumental works and over 100 figurative sculptures included within public and private collections throughout the United States and internationally. Frudakis currently lives and works near Philadelphia, and is best known for his sculpture Freedom, which shows a series of figures breaking free from a wall and is installed in downtown Philadelphia. Other notable works are at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina, the National Academy of Design, and the Lotos Club of New York City, the Imperial War Museum in England, the Utsukushi ga-hara Open Air Museum in Japan, and the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa.
21c Museum Hotels is a contemporary art museum and boutique hotel chain based in Louisville, Kentucky. The chain also has locations in Lexington, Kentucky; Cincinnati, Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; Bentonville, Arkansas; Durham, North Carolina; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri;. Each of these eight properties comprises a boutique hotel, a contemporary art museum, and a restaurant. It was acquired by the French hotel group Accor in July 2018 for $51 million.
Kentucky Women Remembered is an exhibit in the Kentucky State Capitol that honors the contributions of women from the Commonwealth. The exhibit consists of over 60 watercolor portraits of outstanding Kentucky women. The Kentucky Commission on Women receives nominations and selects two to four honorees each year to be included. The exhibit includes famous Kentucky musicians Loretta Lynn and Rosemary Clooney as well as civic leaders Mae Street Kidd and Georgia Davis Powers.
Lincoln Memorial at Waterfront Park is a statue of Abraham Lincoln, depicted as he would have looked before he became President of the United States. The sculpture of him is bareheaded, seated on a rock with an open law book in one hand and the other in an outstretched, welcoming gesture. The statue is located at Waterfront Park in Louisville, Kentucky. The Lincoln Memorial in Louisville is part of the Lincoln Heritage Trail. The statue and its accompanying bas-relief historical panels were created by American sculptor Ed Hamilton. Landscape design for Waterfront Park was by Hargreaves Associates. The 2006 Kentucky General Assembly authorized $2 million for the memorial, which was supplemented by private donations.
Edmund Kirby Smith is a bronze sculpture commemorating the Confederate officer of the same name by C. Adrian Pillars that was installed in the United States Capitol Visitor Center as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection from 1922 to 2021. The statue was gifted by the state of Florida in 1922.
Nettie Bayless Courts Depp was an education reformer and the first woman elected to public office in Barren County, Kentucky when she was elected Superintendent of Barren County Schools in 1913. She served from January 1, 1914, through December 31, 1917.
Statues for Equality is an initiative to improve the gender parity in public monuments worldwide. Creators Gillie and Marc noted that up to 2019, only five of New York City's 150 monuments commemorated nonfictional women.
The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky on March 6, 2020, when Governor Andy Beshear's office announced the first confirmed case in Cynthiana, Kentucky, and declared a state of emergency to ensure all entities had the necessary response resources. As of January 1, 2023, 1,667,275 cumulative cases of COVID-19 were confirmed, with 17,694 deaths.
The Girl Puzzle Monument honoring activist and journalist Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, pen name Nellie Bly (1864-1922), is a public sculptural installation by American artist Amanda Matthews, CEO/Partner of Prometheus Art Bronze Foundry and Metal Fabrication. The installation is located on the northern tip of Roosevelt Island in Lighthouse Park in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The location is significant because of its proximity to the remains of the old Blackwell Island Asylum - The Octagon is the last remnant of the original building where Nellie Bly went undercover as a patient while working as a reporter at the New York World. Nellie Bly wrote of the mistreatment of patients at the asylum in a series of articles and then in 1887 had them compiled into a book, Ten Days in a Mad-House.
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