Dear Friends, Last week I was in Orlando attending a Centennial "Champagne Toast" to my mother's multi-colored totem which was displayed at the entrance to the Orange County Administration Center in downtown Orlando. The multi-colored totem was part of her 2003 Rockefeller Center Exhibition. After that Champagne Toast we walked across the street to toast her six story 2006 (720 piece sculpture) "Celestial Joy" inside Orlando's municipal parking garage at South and Rosalind Streets.  During the event I was honored to share a few stories about my mother who lived an extraordinary life (as I am learning on this eight year journey). A brochure with a map was given out of my mother's art located in Orlando, Maitland, Casselberry, Deland, Winter Park, and Winter Garden - all cities near Orlando (See below). It is interesting to note that my mother was 83 years old when she did the Multi-Colored Totem for Rockefeller Center and 86 when she completed "Celestial Joy" for Orlando. Follow us on Facebook:  www.facebook.com/gillespieart/ Follow us on Instagram: Dorothy_Gillespie www.dorothygillespie.com

Sculpture on the Lawn 2019

Terry Olson, Director of Arts & Cultural Affairs (Chief Arts Instigator for Orange County)

This past Fall I was asked to record a small narrative to accompany my mother’s sculpture. An audio guide for the “Sculpture on the Lawn” exhibition. The audio appears in the Otocast mobile app and will also have photos, text, links to a website, directions to help people find the multi-totem, and more.  Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/app/otocast/id880987065?ls=1&mt=8.

Creating the 185 piece Rockefeller Sculpture in NYC studio in 2002

Multi-Colored Totem on display at Rockefeller Center in January 2003

Dorothy Gillespie Sculpture on view in the lobby of the Orange County Tax Collector 301 South Rosalind Avenue. My mother created this sculpture for the dedication of the first sculpture " Encircled Pathway to the Enchanted Kingdom" in the Orlando Municipal Parking Garage July 17, 1997 (See last photo)

Celestial Joy" 2006 is a mammoth 62-foot-high dangling sculpture with 720 of her signature metallic bouquets -- "animated waves and curls of color," "ribbons," "glistening jewels," as others have called them -- attached to 36 cables. It took an army of volunteers seven days to install.

“All art is a thumbprint of the artist.” “A piece of myself is in everything I create” Dorothy Gillespie

My mother loved "Celestial Joy". Of her thousands of pieces, she called it her favorite. She was quoted in the Orlando Sentinel in 2006: "It’s very daring, and gets to me somewhere where nothing got to me before," she said. "It's ethereal."

The sculpture titled "Celestial Joy" is actually the second piece she did in the same location of the six story Jackson/Rosalind Parking Garage in downtown Orlando; it is entirely different than the first. (See photo below)

The first sculpture, created in 1996, was titled " Encircled Pathway to the Enchanted Kingdom" and was on the cover of the architecture magazine titled Florida/Caribbean Architect. Centered in the double helix and visible throughout the garage was the vibrant 62' x 18' sculptural column ( first three photos, below). It was composed of 96 painted (inside and out) aluminum panels, hooked together and stabilized by 250,000 yards of post-tension cable. The bright-color sculpture extended the height of the double helix. Red, yellow, blue, or green accents at each level coordinated with color-keyed railings and markers.