To see and appreciate cream-white marble and sculpture, you could go to Italy. Or you could experience the same thing right here in Alabama.
The world’s largest deposit of cream white, architecturally sculptable marble is quarried in Sylacauga, just to the west of Highway 280.
Now, a display of sculptures crafted from Sylacauga marble is on exhibit in Homewood City Hall.
Here is your official invitation to the marble exhibit from the Homewood Arts Council by sculptor Craigger Browne.
Stop by City Hall to see the latest exhibit by Craigger Browne.
There will be a reception at City Hall
on August 21, 5pm-7pm.
Craigger is an Alabama native and currently the Sculptor-in-Residence in Sylacauga.
A graduate of Vestavia Hills High School in 1986, he attended the University of Montevallo on a baseball scholarship and studied art from 1986-1990. He attended Lacoste School of the Arts in Lacoste, France the Summer and Fall semesters of 1990 where he began carving limestone and fell in love with the process.
In the Spring of 1991, he received a BFA with a concentration in sculpture from the University of Montevallo. He was then hired as an assistant sculpture professor for the Summer and Fall Semesters at Lacoste School of the Arts in 1991.
In January-April of 1992, he received a Guggenheim scholarship to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy. Upon the recommendation of Peter Rockwell, Norman Rockwell’s son, Craigger moved to Carrara, Italy to work in marble at Studio Nicoli from 1992-1995. At the time it was the oldest active stone studio in Italy. He worked with the studio’s master carvers(artigiani) learning the craft on his own work as well as commissions.
After returning to Birmingham he continued to carve and periodically traveled to Carrara to work and purchase stone.
In 2011, he attended the Sylacauga Marble Festival for the first time and subsequently was commissioned to sculpt “Sylacauga Emerging” in front of Sylacauga’s Municipal Complex. This is when his tenure as Sculptor in Residence began and he’s been sculpting there ever since.
He has exhibits throughout Europe and the United States. His work can be found in museum, corporate, private and public collections across five of the seven continents.
Public and Museum collections in Alabama include:
Ivy Green in Tuscumbia
Huntsville Space and Rocket Center
Mortimer Jordan High School in Kimberly
Plank Road Station in Winterboro
Saint Marks Catholic Church in Birmingham
The Birmingham Zoo
Comer Museum and Arts Center in Sylacauga
B. B. Comer Library in Sylacauga
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
The Courthouse in Monroeville
The Richards-DAR House Museum in Mobile
With the Sylacauga marble and photographs coming to the Birmingham area, it’s the “Marble City” coming to the “Magic City.”
Jim ‘Zig’ Zeigler’s beat is the colorful and positive about Alabama -- her people, places, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at [email protected].
Don’t miss out! Subscribe to our newsletter and get our top stories every weekday morning.
