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About Griffin daily news. (Griffin, Ga.) 1924-current | View Entire Issue (July 8, 1977)
■!»■ ' ' ««_ * Artist Herbert Creecy does his thing in Barnesville warehouse. Artist left rat race Herbert Creecy feels the purity of art is suffering as the result of big money investors who are after monetary return and the social acceptance art affords them. “There are about 40,000 artists living on Manhattan Island (New York) and they’re all struggling to gain ac ceptance by the big money holders,” said Creecy. “It isn’t enough for the so-called collectors to buy the painting. The artist has to attend a special social gathering at the buyer’s home and be ‘seen’ hanging the painting. It’s a rat race.” That’s one reason Creecy chose to do his work in the South, his home, in an old Barnesville warehouse. Situated in downtown Barnesville, Creecy, an accomplished acrylics artist, works and lives in a building which used to be a cotton warehouse, the front of which he rents to the proprietor of a restaurant. Inside, at one end of the warehouse, is a spacious area half the size of a basketball court with walls of whitewashed brick covered by huge, stretched canvases of near-finished paintings situated under special lights. His work area is beneath a skylight where canvases hang from nails on a temporary wall a few feet removed from the side of the warehouse. The floors, of heavy boards worn with time, are covered by droppings of Brakeman couldn’t wave children off railroad tracks HUNTINGTON PARK, Calif. (AP) - It’s a sight dreaded by every train , engineer — kids on the tracks, heads down. Larry Van Daele was pulling his 15- car freight toward its home yard after a daily run to Los Angeles harbor Thursday when he spotted four children, hand in hand, idly stepping • from tie to tie, a Union pacific spokesman said. Slowly, they came toward him. He sounded his diesel’s shrill whistle. GRIFFIN DAI Daily Since 1872 acrylics. Brushes and tubes of paint lay strewn about on crudely made tables and in pasteboard boxes on the floor. At the opposite end of the warehouse, in one comer, the floor has been elevated and stairs lead up onto a platform where a slab of marble resting on large cuts of wood serves as a coffee table. A comfortable sofa and chairs surround the table. The kitchen and bathroom are partitioned with un finished wood and the sleeping area is located in a loft above them. Pieces of sculpture and paintings adorn the walls and tables. “I’m a southerner; this is my home. I just wouldn’t like living in New York,” said Creecy. “Living there is okay if, as one of my friends there said, ‘you don’t mind returning home and finding that your furniture has been stolen.’ If I ever go to live in a major city it would be Atlanta or Paris...some place that is pleasant to live in.”'\ But living in the South can hurt an artist’s career said Creecy. “The South doesn’t have the wealth to support art,” he said. “When money gets tight, as it is now, the first thing to go is art. A good art market requires a lot of money. It follows that artists in a poor market are not exposed to a lot of art and so they don’t learn as much about it as those in a good market.” The artist, bom in Norfork, Va., spent But they kept coming. He sounded the whistle again and threw on the emergency brake. The train slowed, but only gradually. Brakeman Maurice Dieu leaped from the train, running and waving at the kids. The railroad said the freight was traveling at less than the 20 m.p.h train yard speed limit. “But the four of them, they were looking directly down at the ties,” said Dieu. He said he climbed onto the platform Griffin, Ga., 30223, Friday Afternoon, July 8,1977 most of his adolescence living in Atlanta where he later had studios on 15th street. He attended the University of Alabama and the Atlanta Art Institute and studied etching in France under S. Stanley Hayter, originally from England and one of the world’s foremost printers, having worked with such famous artists as Dali and Picasso. Contrary to popular opinion, painting is hard work he said. “It’s like anything else, you have to stick with it and it requires longevity. “I work different ways, sometimes I get into it and work for long periods of time. Other times I’ll work a while and then quit and come back to it and see new things in the work. “Basically I’m working with shapes, lines and color to create illusions. I’m constantly searching for things; looking for things that interest me.” Creecy has paintings in 5 major museums in the U.S. including the Whitney in New York, the Atlanta Museum of Art, a museum in Min neapolis, Akron and Palm Beach. His works are handled by agents. His last show was at the Cochran Biannual Show in February. He has been doing nothing but painting for 12 years, the last 4 in Barnesville. “It’s what I like to do best. Sometimes I like it and sometimes I hate it but I plan to go on painting for as long as I can.” in front of the engine. “I thought, well, maybe my voice might carry... I have no idea why they didn’t hear the whistle.” Three of the children were killed on the rails as the train ground to a stop. The fourth was critically injured. No one knows why they didn’t move. “The brakeman got out and waved and hollered and everything else,” said Union Pacific spokesman John Forbes. “Have you ever heard a diesel whistle? It turns you blue.” Area swelters in 101 reading No relief from the heat is in sight, the National Weather Service in Georgia said. The heat sent the temperature to 101 degrees at the Spalding Forestry Unit Thursday afternoon. That’s the highest it has been in many years in Griffin. The day before, the temperature hit 100 at the Forestry headquarters. Extended forecasts indicated the heat would continue through Monday or longer. The best the forecasters could do was hold hope for scattered afternoon or evening showers. But they didn’t sound very hopeful. Elsewhere over Georgia, the Associated Press reported: Officials of Georgia Power Co.’s parent firm, the Southern Co., predicted an all-time record demand for electricity as the heat wave sent Georgians in search of air conditioners. The weather service predicted little relief from the heat through Saturday. The forecast calls for readings in the mid 90s to 100 with lows in the 70s. Isolated thundershowers are expected in southern Georgia during the late afternoons and evenings. In addition, an air stagnation ad visory has been posted for Georgia. The stagnant high pressure system will remain stationary until midnight tonight, forecasters said. This could cause breathing problems for persons with respiratory difficulties because smoke, dust and gases will accumulate near the ground, especially during the night and early morning. The weather service said Columbus reached 104 degrees at 3 p.m. Thurs day, making it the southwest Georgia city’s hottest day in 25 years. It also marked Columbus’ second consecutive day of temperatures over 100 degrees and the 28th consecutive day with a reading over 90. Rome reported a reading of 103, while LaGrange, Macon and Savannah reported readings of 101 and Athens and Augusta each hit 100. The thermometer in Atlanta reached 97, which meteorologists said was the city’s hottest day since July 3, 1970. After the heat built up, scattered thunderstorms developed in southeastern and southern Georgia. Savannah got some relief when a thunderstorm struck in midafternoon, dropping 1.17 inches of rain in an hour and lowering the temperature 21 degrees. The Country Parson by Frank Clark “We tend to praise folks after they die—when we’re sure they aren’t about to do something foolish.” But Van Daele “was pushing a thousand tons ... He tried, but trains don’t stop like automobiles,” Forbes said. “Before we identified them, we thought they might be handicapped,” Forbes said of the children. “We thought they might be deaf.” Amanda Lack, 7; her 6-year-old brother Jason, 6; and Julie Kline, 10, were killed. Julie’s 8-year-old sister Holly was listed in “extremely critical” condition at St. Francis Hospital after Vol. 105 No. 160 I jssa \ ■ ■* v \ T. <• •<> r .-A ABH t > " . . *** * Remember? Remember this picture of Maddox road we published earlier this year when the community was in the grips of one of Its worst winters in modern history? We thought looking at it might bring a moment of relief from the record heat that promises to be with us through the weekend. Some folks last winter vowed not to complain when summer came, regardless of how hot it got. City okays $25,000 for library budget City Commissioners met Thursday night and approved funding $25,000 to the Flint River Regional Library budget for the new fiscal year which began July 1. The vote was 3 to 2 and included a provision that before the money is delivered, the city receive a new budget reflecting the $50,000 in cuts approved by both the city and county boards of commission Thursday morning. The county had already said it would pay half or $25,000. The city also stipulated that the library submit a 1979 budget 90 days prior to next July 1. The motion was made by Com missioner Dick Mullins who agreed with other commissioners that library salaries were excessive. “But in the interest of harmony and of preventing a situation which might cause discord and dissension in the community, I think we should go ahead and contribute $25,000,” he said. Mullins noted the amount was $7,000 more than the city has been con tributing each year and $16,000 more than was budgeted this year. His motion was seconded by Mayor undergoing emergency surgery. On their way home from a morning in the park on a hot summer day, they had decided to stop at the trainyard in this largely industrial suburb. “They use it as a playground, un fortunately" Forbes said. “There are kids all over. Forbes said Van Daele “saw their eyes and he just couldn’t understand why they didn’t move. The engineer is (nearly) in shock.” Weather FORECAST FOR GRIFFIN AREA- Continued hot and humid through Saturday with chance of afternoon or evening thundershowers. Lows tonight in mid 70s and highs Saturday in upper 90s. LOCAL WEATHER—Low this morning at the Spalding Forestry Unit 73, high Thursday 101. Raymond Head. “I really don’t want to give them anything, but I agree with Dick, we need harmony. The only way I’ll go along is if they guarantee to cut out the fat,” said Commissioner Ernest “Tiggy” Jones. Commissioners Louis Goldstein and R. L. “Skeeter” Norsworthy voted against the funding. Norsworthy said he would go along with the city’s paying $20,000 instead and “I don’t like that. The salaries make me sick. They are ridiculous,” he said. Goldstein took a swipe at the library board calling it “ineffective”. “The whole board ought to be replaced. This whole thing is camouflaged..l’d like to see an audit,” he said referring to several apparent discrepancies in the budget. He noted that the budget submitted for the new year contained last year’s salaries and did not reflect more than $13,000 in pay hikes built into new budget totals. (Continued on page six.) People ••• and things Vacationer returning home to Griffin from trip to Georgia coast proclaiming he needs another week of vacation to get some rest. Man wiping sweat from forehead, looking with envy as young boy rides bike by, clad only in walking shorts. German shepherd type dog jumping into compact car through window while traffic was stopped at Ninth and Poplar streets; occupants scatter.
