An exhibition by award-winning pastel artist Ann Parsons Odum, whose paintings have helped preserve the memory of small-town Duluth, will be featured at the Hudgens Center for Art and Learning’s Rowe Promenade Gallery, November 10, 2023 through January 13, 2024.
Odum
A preview reception will be held November 10, from 5 to 8 p.m. Reservations can be made by calling (770) 623-6002 or email at info@thehudgens.org. The exhibit will be open to the public Tuesdays through Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Ms. Odum’s exhibition is called “Through the Eyes of One of Our Own” and features a retrospective of pastels and paintings inspired by Duluth, China and Africa, plus flowers.
Odum’s early work was focused on historic paintings of Duluth and the surrounding area. Among her favorites is a mural of Old Duluth on the brick wall of what used to be her family’s store, which has since been razed to create Parsons Alley. She painted or drew more than 90 local scenes during her career, donating many to charitable causes.
She says: “I painted around Duluth because I loved it. Little did I know that most of the sites I painted would be gone so soon.”
Her career as an artist began late in life, when she was the mother of four and worked full-time in the Parsons’ family store. She began painting when her sister, Margaret, broke a leg on a skiing trip and asked Odum to come visit and paint to pass the time. That stoked her creative fires, and she soon took a correspondence course and began painting with oils and acrylics.
In 1984, she discovered her love for pastels and worked for several years with internationally known pastelist Philip Lekki. She also participated in workshops conducted by notable artists such as Alan Flattmann, Flora Grufuni, Ray Pierotti and Albert Handell.
Odum has been a juried member of excellence in the Southeastern Pastel Society and has won awards in numerous international shows. Her work has been featured on the cover of the Duluth Fall Festival publication for years and she has been voted best artist by Gwinnett Magazine. She is a member of the Duluth Fine Arts League.
She jokingly said, “I’m famous for about one square mile.”
Now officially retired at age 91, Odum has worked on murals at Duluth First Methodist Church, Gwinnett Tech and the Southeastern Railway Museum, which features her latest work, a pair of 4-by-5-foot paintings of streetscapes from old Duluth.
The “Through the Eyes of One of Our Own” exhibition is made possible through the support of the Margaret Parsons Andrews Family.
Two Gwinnett city managers slated to get awards
Two city managers from Gwinnett will be honored when the Metro Atlanta Redevelopment Summit (MARS) meets on November 2 at the John C. Maxwell Leadership Center at 12Stone Church, 2050 Sugarloaf Circle, in Duluth. It will be from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m.
Warbington
Radford
They are Paul Radford, city manager of Sugar Hill, and Chuck Warbington, city manager of Lawrenceville. Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin will also be honored. All three will be named to the Redevelopment Champion Hall of Fame.
The Summit will be co hosted by Partnership Gwinnett and the Council for Quality Growth. It features an inside look at upcoming redevelopment projects around the region. The program also offers insight into trends affecting the industry, networking and best practices from successful redevelopment projects, and the presentation of the annual MARS Awards.
Keynote Speaker will be David Dixon, the vice president of Stantec’s Urban Places Fellow. He has been named by Residential Architecture Magazine as the “person we call when we want to know about cities.” Dixon is well known for helping create new, mixed-use urban districts (in both cities and suburbs) and the planning, revitalization, and redevelopment of downtowns.
The event will also recognize and honor pinnacle achievements in redevelopment from throughout the 11-county metropolitan statistical area (MSA). Other categories and finalists for the 2023 MARS Awards include:
Small Redevelopment Project of the Year
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- Gwinnett Entrepreneur Center
- Saddle Shoals Subdivision
- StillFire Brewery & Station Park
Medium Redevelopment Project of the Year
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- Atlanta Humane Society Corporate Headquarters
- The Grove at Towne Center
- Village Green Park
Large Redevelopment Project of the Year
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- Better Buford Highway Project
- Johns Creek Town Center Vision and Master Plan
- Pullman Yards
Lawrenceville wins regional excellence award from ARC
The Atlanta Regional Commission has presented the Regional Excellence Award for Livable Center to the City of Lawrenceville and the Novare Group for the Lawrenceville Lawn and Lawrenceville SouthLawn projects.
Lawrenceville Lawn, a 5.5-acre city park, and the adjacent Lawrenceville SouthLawn, a mixed-use development, bring new green space, housing, and shops to the city’s downtown.
The Lawn features a volleyball court, dog park, playground, and amphitheater and boasts an exciting schedule of events. The SouthLawn is a live-work-play community that includes 15,000 square feet of retail, 159 single family homes, and 426 apartments and townhomes.
- For additional information about the 2023 Regional Excellence Awards, visit
atlantaregional.org/regional-excellence-awards/.
More Flock cameras coming to states routes in Gwinnett
Gwinnett commissioners have approved Gwinnett Police Chief J.D. McClure to sign a right-of-way maintenance agreement between Gwinnett Police and the Georgia Department of Transportation that allows 36 Flock cameras to be installed along state routes in Gwinnett County. These strategically placed cameras enhance public safety and reduce response times to crime. There are more than 7,400 cameras in metro Atlanta, and 835 of those cameras have been placed across Gwinnett since 2020.
Harris’s father named to Inventor’s Hall of Fame
The late father of Karen J. Harris of Stone Mountain has been honored in Dayton, Ohio, Ms. Harris is a retired Gwinnett Public Librarian, and compiler of many recommendations to GwinnettForum.
Her father, James Parsons, Jr., a Dayton metallurgist and inventor, has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame recently. The family found a binder full of materials — research notes, patents and news clippings about Parsons. Parsons had never bragged about his invention of Durimet 20, a corrosion-resistant stainless steel alloy. He never mentioned how he oversaw the production of materials useful to the Manhattan Project, which led to the first atomic bomb.
As early as 1929, Parsons received the first of eight patents — six for himself and two shared with others — involving the development and application of noncorrosive metals. It was only on going through the binder that Joy Harris, Parson’s granddaughter, began to understand how important his work was.
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