Rodney Cook Jr. and Stan Mullins
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JULY 5, 2022 | Several Gwinnettians are involved with producing an 8-foot bronze statue to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which will be placed in downtown Atlanta on Jan. 16, 2023.
The near-complete clay statue model was unveiled last Thursday in Athens to a gathering of about 100 people, mostly from Gwinnett.
Selected by the National Monuments Association to design the statue is Gwinnett native Kathy Andrews Fincher, who now lives near Clayton. Sandra and Clyde Strickland of Lawrenceville and Metro Waterproofing, which through the Community Foundation of Northeast Georgia, funded the statue. Kathy researched eight years, designed and sculpted the original maquette for the statue.
What the King statue will look like.
The Monuments Association paired Kathy with Stan Mullins of Athens, an artist known for large-scale projects, to sculpt the Fincher design. The statue will be located in Atlanta for the Andrew Young Peace and Reconciliation walk from Centennial Olympic Park to the Rodney Cook Sr. Peace Park.
Fincher, a classically-trained artist in several medians, focused her design on Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. She found that there are over 80 statues of Dr. King throughout the world, but none depicting him in pastoral robes, nor are any showing him “talking to God, praying or seeking God.” She says: “My design symbolized the Spirit in the wind blowing his robes. I positioned his face to reflect radiate light. One viewer described it as a feeling of ‘Transfiguration.’ The pastor’s hand reaches to the heavens with an open palm to accept and receive guidance.”
Mullins adds “Kathy focused on the meaning of the piece, and I blended technology with 3-D art. We both look upon it as ‘our piece, and it’s really not about us, but about Dr. King.”
Mullins was born in Cherry Point, N.C. in a Marine family. He moved to Marietta, and earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in fine arts from the University of Georgia. For 30 years, Mullins’ studio has been a massive former cotton seed oil factory (and home) over 120 feet long and 50 feet tall. His works include a 16-foot tall statue of Chief Tomachichi, who greeted General Oglethorpe when Georgia was founded in 1733; a 72-ton bronze “Thundering Herd” of three buffalo at Marshall University; and a massive statue of Vince Dooley, located in Athens, among others. He is also currently working on a 15-ton granite Freedom Fighters monument, commissioned by the Hungarian-American Coalition.
Now the two artists are putting final touches on the statue. Next foundry workers will come to the studio to make thick rubber molds from the wax and clay form, then take the molds to the Inferno Foundry of Union City to continue the lost wax process and polish and weld the bronze pieces together. The two artists have been working against the weather, since a wax-clay mix is difficult to work with in hot weather. Work on the statue is done in an air-conditioned area, but temperatures can hit 85 degrees.
The monuments foundation was established in 2008 by Rodney Mims Cook Jr. at Atlantic Station on 17th Street in Atlanta, with its headquarters in the Millennium Gate Georgia History Museum. The Rodney Cook Sr. Park will focus on 300 years of peacemakers in Georgia.
The larger-than-life bronze of Dr. King, will join existing monuments of Ambassador Andrew Young and Congressman John Lewis and will be unveiled on Jan. 16, 2023, to commemorate Dr. King’s birthday in the 55th year of his assassination.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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