Two centuries ago, Jefferson, Lewis, Clark were as big as life and ready to explore

IU Southeast artists are creating life-size figures for bicentennial exhibit at the Falls of the Ohio

By Jayne Spencer and Katherine Sears

Meriwether Lewis

Seaman was a dog of the Newfoundland breed which Lewis purchased for $20 to accompany him to the Pacific.

William Clark

President Thomas Jefferson

Dr. Benjamin Rush

For the next three years, the United States will be observing the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition; 25 million travelers are expected to participate in the commemoration by walking, hiking or paddling along the lands and waterways that linked the Missouri River to that distant place U.S. President Thomas Jefferson referred to as the “Western Ocean.” In late October, that commemoration will be focused on what is now called the Falls of the Ohio in southern Indiana, not far from the Indiana University Southeast campus in New Albany.

On Oct. 26, 1802, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out from the banks of the Ohio River on what was billed as the Voyage of Discovery, buoyed by a hefty $2,500 appropriation from Congress to explore and chart a viable commercial water route to the West Coast.

Such a commemorative event is requiring many volunteers and much community involvement along the expeditionary route. Those already involved include Marilyn Whitesell, a fine arts professor at IU Southeast, and three of her top senior graphic design students, who have already completed life-size renditions of four of the key figures in the expedition. More figures as well as design for the trail markers that point the way of the expedition are in the works.

Collaborating with Dani Cummins, president of the Falls of the Ohio Bicentennial Committee, and Alan Goldstein of the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center, Whitesell and her students have completed life-size depictions of Jefferson, Lewis, Clark and Dr. Benjamin Rush, a Philadelphia physician and developer of “Rush Tablets,” an early pharmaceutical said to aid in the prevention of “bilious fever.”

The four figures, along with a Newfoundland dog named Seaman that also completed the Voyage of Discovery, have already appeared in the Kentucky Derby parade in Louisville earlier this month. They will make appearances at the Indiana State Fairground and will take up residence at the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center, where history buffs will be able to actually “become” their favorite historical figure by putting their face through the head portion of the figure and having a photograph taken against an historically correct backdrop. (Jefferson wannabes, for example, will be standing in front of his beloved Monticello.)

A $900 cost-share grant was awarded to the committee by the National Park Service for Whitesell’s students to create the figures. The idea evolved from an effort by Claudia Crump, an emerita education professor at IU Southeast and chairperson of the Indiana Governor’s Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Education Committee, to find an interactive educational display as part of the trail marker program. Simultaneously, Cummins said that the Falls’ Lewis and Clark committee wanted to create a mobile, interactive display to serve as a cornerstone of the entire exhibit at the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center.

As part of their service-learning requirements, students Caleb Wilson of Corydon, Troy Winebrenner of Louisville and Malissa Calhoun of Salem produced the life-sized figures while conducting research to authenticate the particular historic figures and the proper surroundings for the background. For example, painstaking efforts were made to find the historically correct apothecary bottles to use in Rush’s backdrop. The students eventually turned to Whitesell’s homestead.

“I have a period cabinet, and I’ve been buying apothecary bottles,” Whitesell said. “It had to be just the right bottle style.”

After doing their research, Calhoun and Winebrenner created miniature models using digital photography to serve as a guide for the actual figures. And Wilson’s talents in digital print and design work came in handy as well.

Working on a project that allows the fledgling artists to contribute to an historical event generated excitement among Whitesell’s students.

Future opportunities remain as the committee progresses into other phases of the Lewis and Clark commemoration, noted Goldstein.

For more on the upcoming activities at the Falls of the Ohio, go to:
http://www.fallsoftheohio.org/lewisandclark.shtml

For more on Lewis and Clark as well as the PBS film by Ken Burns, The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, go to this PBS site:
http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/inside/idx_corp.html

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