April 1, 2023 - Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park

On the way back home from Florida, we got off I-95 at Wilson, North Carolina, to see a Whirligig Park that Lynnette's brother had said was good.  We really had no idea what to expect.  We were lucky, the winds were howling.

This is what we found.  The pictures don't do it justice, since they are static.  But the high winds were making everything rotate -- rapidly.  And noisy it was too.
   
This was a park featuring the wind-powered sculptures created by a man named Vollis Simpson.
   
World War II veteran Simpson retired from farming at the age of 60, and began to build wind-driven structures which he called "windmills", but came to be called whirligigs.  He built a number of large whirligigs on his property in Lucama surrounding a pond across from his workshop.  He was also commissioned to create a whriligig for the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore and the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.  Other of Simpson's whirligigs have been exhibited at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City and at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Williamsburg, Virginia.
   
 The Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park was created in Wilson to document, conserve, and display the large sculptures from Simpson's land in Lucama.  The park had its grand opening on November 2, 2017.  Simpson acted as a consultant for the renovation of the whirligigs for display.
 
Simpson died at his home in Lucama at the age of 94.
   
Seeing all these sculptures moving and whirling is really something to see.
   
If you are traveling on I-95 through North Carolina, and its a windy day, besure and stop by the Whirligig Park.  It's worth seeing.
   

"[I’ve been a] farmhouse mover, electric welder, carpenter, the list goes on. If you don't try something, you don't learn anything. Common sense. You come across a lot of these people that know so damn much, sometimes you find out they're dumber than I am..."  
 

--  Vollis Simpson
   
   
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