Here’s what is happening with the Macon Flowers Project

The Macon Flowers Project is coming to a close in April, but there are plenty of workshops to attend between now and then to make a ceramic flower for the community to enjoy.

The public art project leaders, Jeni Hansen Gard and Forrest Sincoff Gard, are hosting free ceramics classes that teach people to make flowers every Monday at 5 p.m. at the Mill Hill Community Arts Center. The flowers will be composed in a public artwork outside of the center over the summer.

“We were like, ‘Let’s invite every person who lives or works in Macon to make a flower, and let’s assemble those into this public artwork’ that would be like this reminder of the beauty that’s here and kind of the uniqueness of each of us as a human,” said Jeni, a resident artist at the center.

Forrest, Jeni’s husband and a resident artist at the center, said they have had more than 250 people participate in the project and several returners make more than one flower.

“I think the project’s going pretty well,” he said. “Early on, some of the workshops had lower attendance, but now the attendance has picked up a lot.”

Ciera Eason, 9, who helps at the workshops, said she has made more than 10 flowers herself and likes attending the class.

“I’m kind of not excited that it’s ending soon like in April because I’d kind of like it to go on and on and on,” she said.

Jeni said they started hosting workshops in July 2018. In November, they received a $25,000 Downtown Challenge Grant, a $3 million grant initiative made possible by donations from the Peyton Anderson Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, to help fund the project.

Meagan Evans, who brought her daughters Ella and Iris to the workshop, said she enjoyed the experience, and her daughters did as well.

“I thought it was a wonderful art opportunity,” she said. “We had a great time. We made flowers, and we’re excited to see the final project.”

Ella agreed with her mother.

“I made pretty flowers. So did my sister, my mom and my grandmother,” she said. “It was neat, beautiful and pretty.”

Jeni said the project should be finished that the end of summer, and they have had more than 30 workshops with hundreds of flowers.

“It’s actually so exciting now that we have boxes and boxes of flowers, but I think it’s like not real until the public artwork happens,” she said.