The Henry Farny Opening Ceremony for New Covington Park

Free pizza, friends in period costume, and art. What a way to kick off the weekend!

The new art park dedicated to Henry Farny [(1847-1914, also friend of local Covington, KY artist Frank Duveneck (1848-1919)] took place this afternoon, a half block from our home.

It's great to see the neighborhood coming together to take vacant lots and make something artistic and community oriented out of it, most due to gracious volunteers, and artwork by another up and coming local artist, David Michael Rice, (who we've seen do a show downtown Cincinnati... very cool stuff this guy makes. Very cool.) Seen here above *inside* his latest sculpture.














Just remember, whatever happens, "Don't Break Character!" (Ref.: South Park episode 1207)















The sculpture which is the centerpiece for the park, by David Michael Rice, is a depiction of Henry Farny's signature character, seen in the bottom right corner of the artwork below, which I believe (and I'm open to correction on this) means "Long Boots" in Sioux.

































There were quite a few 'dignitaries' here to officially open the park, so as for the ribbon cutting ceremony, there were a lot of scissors needed.














Seven, I think.














David did the honors after the ribbon was cut.














Kids were having as much fun as the parents were...



And then again, some were just having fun all by themselves. (You guys are just too cute for words... )
















Then David rested IN his laurels ;-)

Of course, we thought one of the better parts of the park was the clever use of local native arbor species to represent the signature of Farny....














Looks familiar, don't it? (Here's why)