The statues you see when you cross into Balboa Park from the west memorialize some of the park’s most notable forebears: George Marston, Ephraim Morse, Alonzo Horton and Kate Sessions.
Ruth Hayward studied their lives and physical features quite closely when she prepared to sculpt them. An engineer for decades, Hayward learned to sculpt in her retirement. Hayward was one of six speakers at our Meeting of the Minds event last week, which followed the pecha-kucha format of 20 slides, displayed for 20 seconds each.
You can hear more from Hayward herself in the video below. Be sure to watch for photographs of the park’s earliest days — Hayward dug up some good ones:
We’re posting videos of all of the presentations, filmed by our partners at the Media Arts Center San Diego. You can watch Maren Dougherty introduce us to 20 little-known people in the park, Jose Ysea detail the now-defunct landfill in one of the park’s canyons, and Marlene Williams tour us through her big backyard: Balboa Park.
I’m Kelly Bennett, reporter for Voice of San Diego. You can reach me directly at kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.325.0531.
And follow Behind the Scene on Facebook.
Disclosure: Voice of San Diego members and supporters may be mentioned or have a stake in the stories we cover. For a complete list of our contributors, click here.