Lazarus & Persephone, Cornerstones by Be Gardiner, Creston, North Carolina, Chattanooga State Sculpture Garden II, part of the Chattanooga State campus permanent collection 


The sculpture has three blocks of granite, offset from each other.  The bottom two blocks are roughly rectangular.  A small wedge of stone sits on top of the second block, on which rests the third block, which is square on its bottom but has a curved upper surface like an elongated S on its side.  Atop that sits two halves of two torsos, one male, one female, joined at the base, but leaning away from each other in a V.  The two torsos represent Lazarus and Persephone.


The story of Lazarus is told in the Bible in John 11.  Lazarus, the friend of Christ, had grown sick and died.  Although Jesus had been contacted, he had delayed his coming to finish the work he was doing.  When he finally reached Lazarus' home, he was met first by Lazarus' sister Martha and then Mary and the onlookers.  Weeping, Christ ordered Lazarus' tomb be opened, over protests, and when it was, he called Lazarus back to life. 

The story of Persephone is part of Greek myth.  Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, was loved by Hades, who kidnapped her and took her to the underworld to be his queen.  Distraught, Demeter demanded that Persephone be returned to her.  Hades, in an effort to keep Persephone, offered her food, a pomegranate.  She ate, and the act obligated her to return each year to spend time with Hades.  The story is a myth explaining the changing seasons.

Both myths are stories of death and rebirth, a common mythical theme.  At the end of the science fiction movie XMen II, Professor Xavier is reading to his students from T.H. White's The Once and Future King, which takes its title from this same image of death and resurrection.  The scene shifts to the lake where Jean Gray has just sacrificed herself, and deep in the water appears the moving shadow of a large bird, the Phoenix, a mythical creature which is reborn from its own ashes.  The concept of death and rebirth continues to fascinate and move us.


The artist, Be Gardiner was born 1950 in Washington, D.C. He has a BA from UNC-Chapel Hill.  He has exhibited in the Center of the Earth Gallery in Charlotte, the Gray Gallery at East Carolina University, the Ewing Gallery at the University of Tennesse-Knoxville, Somerhill Gallery in Chapel Hill, the Greenhill Center for NC Art, UNC-Asheville, the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens in West Palm Beach, and the Ergo Sum Gallery in Augusta. His work has also been exhibited at Universities of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Appalachian State University, Western Carolina University, Lynchburg College, The University of Notre Dame, Radford University, and the University of Tennesse-Knoxville.  He has also received the Rosen Prize from Jack Burnham and first prize at the Bryan Invitational Exhibition from Helaine Posner.