Projects – Art Exchanges – Public Art – Cincinnati/Liuzhou Friendship Garden in LongTan Park (2008)

Four thematic designs were sent to Liuzhou, China, for application on 4’ x 4’ copper panels, and attachment to the foundation arches of the Friendship Bridge in Longtan Park’s Cincinnati-Liuzhou Friendship Garden. Described are the first life forms in the Ohio River Valley including Cincinnatian Era fossils, native plants and motifs created by the Adena and Hopewell peoples.

  • The Friendship Garden Bridge Panels

  • “Native Plants of the Ohio River Valley” Line Drawing by Jan Brown Checco — Our woodland environment has been blessed with rich soils pushed to the front of Ice Age glaciers. The Ohio River and tributaries are surrounded with forests and fields abundant with trees, flowers and seed producing vegetables that have nurtured a thriving animal community throughout time. Featured are Karner Blue and Tiger Swallowtail butterflies, White Oak, Sycamore, American Elm, Black Walnut, Cottonwood, Red Maple, Bellwort, Columbine, Virginia Bluebells, Sweet Cicely, Jewelweed, Purple Coneflower, Blackeyed Susans, Blazing Star, Violets, Corn, Beans, Squash

  • “Native Plants of the Ohio River Valley” Copper cast panel sculpted by Prof. He Zhenhai

  • Symbolic Imagery of the Adena and Hopewell Peoples - The Adena people were mound builders and Ohio’s first farmers, living in villages where they supplemented their food sources with hunting abundant wildlife and gathering fruits and seeds from native plants. Their rich cultural and spiritual life is communicated to us through the stone, copper and pottery objects discovered within their mounds. The most famous of these ceremonial structures is the Serpent Mound in Adams County. The Hopewell people, also settled farmers, grew out of the Adena culture. Their concern for the welfare of the dead is expressed through symbolic diagrams engraved on clay and stone tablets, depicting sacred animals and a world of upper and lower realms.

  • Prof He sculpting Jan’s design for the Adena Hopewell panel in clay, 4’ x 4’ dimensions. This clay relief will next be molded and then cast in copper.

  • “Fossils from the Cincinnatian Period” Copper Panel - Cincinnati is known throughout the world for the abundant and beautiful fossils found in limestone and shale sediments left on the sea floor during the Ordovician Period, about 450 million years ago—220 million years before the dinosaurs lived. The shallow sea that covered much of what is now the North American continent was filled with marine life - trilobites, bryozoans, brachiopods, mollusks, echinoderms, and graptolites. So famous are these Ordovician fossils and rocks of the Cincinnati region that geologists use the term "Cincinnatian" for strata of the same age all over North America.

  • “Immigration to Cincinnati” – Copper Panel — The Ohio River brought the earliest east coast immigrants to Losantiville, the name first given to Cincinnati. John Cleves Symmes led 60 persons and 14 four-horse wagons into lands inhabited by the Miami, Shawnee, Wyandot and Delaware natives. When Fort Washington was established in 1789, the trust in additional military security increased the flow of settlers who arrived by flatboats and keelboats. Steamboats ruled the rivers for decades, until farther-reaching railroad systems overtook water traffic. When automobiles became dominant in the 20th century, Powell Crosley’s lightweight automobile offered an energy-efficient option to the larger and heavier models out of Detroit.

  • Professor He sculpts his own designs that are inspired by symbolism used by the Minority Peoples of Guangxi Province.

  • Copper Panel by Prof. He Zhenhai

  • Copper Panel by Prof. He Zhenhai

  • Copper Panel by Prof. He Zhenhai

  • Copper Panel by Prof. He Zhenhai