Stan Hywet's New Outdoor Exhibit Blows Us Away

The summer breeze swirling around Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens is decidedly more woke this year. The estate, one of the largest houses in the U.S. and the former home of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. co-founder F.A. Seiberling, is honoring the era just after World War I with its major outdoor art exhibit Winds of Change. “There was a lot of expansive social change that influenced everything between work, play, politics and culture,” says Joe Ott, director of facilities and maintenance, “one of which would be women’s suffrage.” With that movement in mind, the estate reached out to female artists near Akron to create wind sculptures that are spread around the grounds. “Each sculpture has an element that kind of moves in the wind or spins in the wind,” Ott says. He breaks down three of the 13 sculptures and where to find them.

Bipolar Butterfly
Located in the Great Garden and built mostly out of aluminum, this piece by Kimmy Henderson marks new territory for the painter. As someone diagnosed with bipolar and generalized anxiety disorders, Henderson uses her art, such as murals of asymmetrical butterflies, to try to end the stigma behind mental illness. “You can stand on the base [in front of it] to get a picture of it, so the wings are behind you,” says Ott, who notes the wings move slightly in the wind.



Birds of Ohio — Hummingbird 
As one of three sculptures of birds found in Ohio by Nicole Schwan, the hummingbird (also in the Great Garden) is made out of mostly recycled copper and gems and mounted on a spiral piece of copper decorated with additional smaller gems and copperwork to signify flowers. “As that spins in the wind, it rotates and catches the light,” Ott says. “She specializes in spinning pieces, so we really liked her work because she already has a kinetic component.”



Prohibition Inhibition
As a nod to Prohibition and the fact that the first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting took place in Stan Hywet’s Gate Lodge building in 1935, Jennifer Winkler used recycled beer bottles to create the purple, pink and teal glass flowers intertwined with metalwork in this piece. “Then she has glass leaves that are intertwined within that too,” Ott says. “And it’s in a very cool spot in our Birch Tree Allee where it looks like it’s kind of growing out of the ground.”