The Giant Head - Art at the Jacksonville International Airport

Last night I traveled to the Jacksonville International Airport to pick up a good friend. I actually left early and was going over the Matthews bridge when she called from Tampa to tell me she was late. Had I checked my Facebook I would have delayed my departure. I came back home and before long she told me that they were boarding in Tampa and she was on her way. I again loaded up, in her car, to go and pick her up. It was raining so I still left with plenty of time to get there early, I hate being at the airport and have to wait for your ride so I always get there early for my pickups. On my way I took several pictures of the sunset, pretty cool with all the clouds. Anyway I am pulling into the waiting lot to watch the board that will tell me when her plane lands and I notice this giant head strategically placed along the route into the terminal. I had never noticed it before so I was intrigued, here is a picture of the head in question.

So I thought, since I have my camera that I would get a couple of pictures of this piece of art, in hind sight I wish I would have left my camera at home. I got this picture from the internet but I took some shots from across the street in the waiting lot with the zoom on my little Nikon CoolPix all the way out. I then thought, I have time I will just walk across the street and get some shots from a closer vantage point and maybe sit and stare at this piece for a while and see what it says to me. Once on the other side of the road, why did Mr. Oatmeal cross the road, because he is a dumbass that’s why. Well what at first glance appeared to be a lush green lawn quickly turned into a freaking hellish swamp, I was up to my knees in slimy mud that sucked the flip flops off my feet and since they were actually brides flip flops I had to then reach my arm in and retrieve them. Once I was finally able to extricate myself from my swamp walking expedition I then realized that I was covered in mud up to my knees and on one arm up to my elbow and had gotten my shorts and shirt muddy. I must have been quite a sight for the folks driving past, what is that strange man doing walking around the airport grounds with mud all over himself, I am probably lucky I am not in jail or being shipped to the detention center in Cuba.

Oh well I thought as I skulked back to the parking lot where my friends car was parked. As I make my way to the car I start thinking how is this going to work, I did not want to get mud all over her car. I mash the trunk button on the key fob and find one little cloth, a white affair with an orange border that was about the size of a wash cloth. I thought better to ruin that than the upholstery and carpeting in her car. I sat on a wooden bench that they have provided for folks who are waiting and wiped the mud from myself, realizing that several folks were watching from their cars. I could only imagine the snickering that was going on, I would have been outright laughing had I witnessed the circus act I just put on. Before long I get the call, her plane has landed, I had cleaned myself up and was nervous about the cloth. I asked my friend that I found this cloth in her trunk and what, if any, significance it may have. It was a good laugh as I told her the story, it was just a rag that she used to clean her hands, or anything other little messes that may crop up in her car. I can only imagine what she was thinking when i first asked that question. Well that rag now has a good story.

My friend travels much more than I so I asked about the giant head, she seemed think it had been there for a while. I told her I was going to find out about that Giant damn head when I got home, it had caused me so much embarrassment that I felt I needed to know the story. Well come to find out she is called the Goddess of the wind and while I could not find the exact commissioning date the first acticle I found was dated November of 2005. So our 14 foot head had been watching me for several years without my knowledge. I did find out that the sculpture cost a cool 150 grand, just when I thought that was bad enough I learned the airport authority moved the flag pavilion to create a home for the sculpture. And that granite walled home, with cascading waterfalls, cost an astonishing $450,000. It does have lighting that illuminate Hoy es Hoy (Today is Today) from the bottom at night so maybe that 450k was OK. Oh yeah there was another controversy with the Giant Head, the artist called it Hoy es Hoy but the airport authority renamed it to Goddess of the wind, he didn’t mind terribly as he still cashed the check. The artist, Javier Marin drew his inspiration from many different cultures—Mexican, Native American, and Asian. He says that this piece is representative of the Airport’s value of multi-culturalism and places the City on an international level for public art. Is he high, this is Jacksonville, a city that only begrudgingly supports the arts, and then barely at all.

The pre-Columbian and classically inspired features are framed by Medusa-like ringlets of hair that seem to flow around her. She is truly quite impressive, or at least she seemed so from my vantage point in the swamp that surrounds her on three sides. This purchase used operating revenue as part of a larger effort to elevate airport art to an international level, have you ever been to JIA? There is not one international flights that leaves from JIA. For some unknown reason that hasn't deterred officials from clinging to the idea that it's the perfect place for Hoy es Hoy. Especially now that she has mysteriously acquired an aviation-appropriate nickname to go with her new perch. "It's a gateway; it provides a first and lasting impression," said John Clark, executive director of the Jacksonville Airport Authority. "To me, it kind of symbolized this blending of ethnicity. I didn't realize when I first saw it that it was the goddess of wind." WHAT! It had been there for 4 years and I just noticed it. I am relatively sure Mr. Clark is full of something and he can tell any story that makes him feel better about spending the money, what do I care.

No one involved claims to know exactly where the Goddess of the wind nickname came from. But those present when Clark visited the J. Johnson Gallery and first saw Hoy es Hoy agree they heard someone say she could be a "goddess of the wind." Though airport officials acknowledge she is no such thing, they have latched onto that label anyway. The artist, said Hoy es Hoy honors the intellectual and emotional side of humanity, those parts that are universal in everyone. But ultimately it is up to the viewers to decide what they see. "She could be a million things," Marin said from Mexico City. "They can call her Medusa," he said, laughing. "If that's what people see, then she's Medusa. ... I don't try to define things. I like things to be up to interpretation. I agree with him, while art is created with one thing in mind it moves different people in different ways and I wish I could have gotten close enough to the Giant Head to sit, stare and ponder it for a while. Yep, they can call it Goddess of the wind or Medusa or Hoy es Hoy but to me it will always be that “Giant head at the Airport” and I am glad it is there, even though I had a unique way of learning the story.

Have you ever noticed it or knew the story behind it?