Скульптуру «Night Winds» в Лонгвью отреставрируют и переместят в ботанический сад

Longview’s controversial ‘Night Winds’ sculpture – and its artist – again in the spotlight Published 5:45 am Tuesday, August 25, 2026 Editor’s note: News-Journal multimedia journalist Les Hassell writes from a first-person perspective about Longview’s controversial “Night Winds” sculpture and the artist who created it. For more than four decades, “Night Winds” has been one of Longview’s most talked-about works of public art. It has been celebrated and criticized, hauled away in the middle of the night, rescued from discard and given a second life beneath a grove of pecan trees. Now, as the sculpture undergoes restoration before moving to a new permanent home at the Longview Arboretum and Nature Center, those entrusted with its future are looking beyond the steel and paint to the vision of the man who created it. That search recently led a small delegation from the arboretum to Nacogdoches, where artist John Daniel’s widow, Doris Temple Daniel, and their son, Jason Daniel, welcomed the group into the sculptor’s former studio. The visit had a dual purpose: to seek the family’s thoughts on the next chapter of “Night Winds” and to select artwork for a retrospective exhibition that will coincide with the sculpture’s unveiling at the arboretum. John, a Port Arthur native who taught art at Stephen F. Austin State University from 1967 until his retirement in 2005, died in 2015. He left behind a body of work that continues to provoke conversation and invite interpretation. “I am delighted that there is going to be a retrospective show,” Doris said. Inside John’s former studio, largely unchanged since his death, Jason guided the visitors through decades of sculptures, drawings and finished and unfinished ideas. In the sweltering metal building, dust and cobwebs covered many of the pieces, as if the spiders and time itself had quietly become the artist’s final collaborators. Among the day’s biggest surprises came not from one of the sculptures, but from a stack of forgotten sketches. As members of the group sorted through drawings and works on paper, Ann Cochran, a Trinity School of Texas senior who hopes to become a museum curator, uncovered a color charcoal drawing of “Night Winds” made by John and dated “8/3/81.” Frank Herbert, a Longview artist and former Kilgore College art instructor, said the date was roughly two weeks before the sculpture was completed at Kilgore College’s Longview campus. Remarkably, neither Doris nor Jason had ever seen the sketch. The discovery offered a rare glimpse into the sculpture’s earliest days and served as a reminder that even an artist’s family can continue making new discoveries long after his death. Maybe I was paying attention in class Beyond the rediscovery, the visit carried an additional sense of déjà vu for me. More than 40 years ago, as one of John’s students at Stephen F. Austin, I watched many of these sculptures take shape in classroom studios and campus galleries. Seeing those same works sitting where they had been left decades earlier — some coated in dust, others surrounded by tall grass outside the studio — was both surreal and deeply moving. I first heard the story of “Night Winds” in 1985, when Daniel himself told our class about the sculpture’s sudden and controversial removal from its original location in Longview. But until I began researching the sculpture for a story I wrote about it in 2022, I had only seen its original coloration in black-and-white photographs. (Read that story at tinyurl.com/nightwindslnj.) In John’s classes, we discussed how its environment can give sculpture a sense of place and even create new meanings for the work. Where a sculpture is viewed can be almost as important as the sculpture itself. In an artist’s studio, a viewer can focus on its form, materials and details intimately, without the distractions of the outside world. In a gallery or museum, positioned among other works and viewed through the lens of an exhibition, the piece can become part of a larger conversation. Take that same work out of the gallery and put it on a street corner, in a park — or beneath a canopy of pecan trees — and its meaning can change dramatically. Suddenly, it shares space with the everyday world. People encounter it unexpectedly, from different angles and distances, and it becomes part of the landscape rather than simply an object being observed. In that sense, how a sculpture is placed in the world doesn’t simply give it a location — it gives the viewer a different way of seeing it. The setting becomes part of the artwork, and the artwork, in turn, changes the way we experience the place around it. Seeing early color photographs of “Night Winds” made those classroom discussions about public art suddenly make perfect sense. John painted “Night Winds” on location, and the colors he chose reflected the sculpture’s surroundings at the corner of High and South streets in Longview. Reds picked up the awning of a business across the street. Yellows echoed nearby traffic signals. Blues matched the East Texas sky so closely that, in places, the solid steel sculpture seemed almost transparent. The original tenure of “Night Winds” at Kilgore College’s Longview campus was brief. In 1985, former Councilwoman Katherine Blackson, who questioned the use of tax dollars to fund the project, spearheaded a negative letter-writing campaign. In her letters, she referred to “Night Winds” as “a perfect example of a communist policy to erect ugly and meaningless objects instead of art works of beauty and inspiration.” Prompted by the flood of letters and phone calls — and more than a few death threats — Kilgore College Vice President of Academic Affairs Wade Kirk, according to articles from the time, said he was “just tired of the controversy” and made the decision to remove the sculpture. Severed from its base in the middle of the night, “Night Winds” was left near a dumpster at the back of the campus. There it remained, quietly awaiting an uncertain fate, until Dr. Julie Fowler became dean of the KC-Longview campus in 1996. Fowler had spent years parking near the fallen sculpture while teaching at the college. Once she became dean, she began pushing for its resurrection. Catching a second wind In 1997, “Night Winds” was moved to the campus of Trinity School of Texas. John returned to Longview and approved its new location beneath a grove of pecan trees. He also approved repainting the sculpture dark green. Despite her feelings to the contrary, Fowler said she got the impression John wanted the sculpture to “just disappear” into its surroundings. “It’s as important to me as the Statue of Liberty,” she said during an interview. “It’s about freedom of speech. It’s about educational liberty. I wanted to paint it red, but I think John wanted it to just disappear.” And disappear it did. For more than two decades, “Night Winds” became part of the everyday landscape at Trinity School with dozens of children spending their lunch breaks and recesses on the playground surrounding the sculpture. Yet many barely noticed it. When Amanda Tilley, an art instructor at Trinity, talks to her students about “Night Winds,” she says many have no idea what she is talking about. She says they sit with their backs against the 3-ton mass of steel almost every day, eating their Cheetos and sipping their drinks, seemingly unaware that they are leaning against one of the most controversial pieces of public art in the city’s history. In early 2025, that obscurity began to change when “Night Winds” caught the attention of Geff Grimes and local artist Charles Arnold. They began talking about the sculpture’s importance and future. “Charles and I are part of a group of folks who occasionally get together to drink wine and talk about art. I jokingly refer to us as the ‘Some Wednesdays Artsy Fartsy Winos,’” Grimes said. “That evening, everyone else had already left, and it was just the two of us talking in the kitchen when the conversation turned to ‘Night Winds.’ ” Grimes had read a newspaper article in which Fowler expressed her hope that “Night Winds” could eventually find a home at the arboretum. A plan is born Grimes contacted representatives of the arboretum, and once they expressed interest, the logistics of restoring and relocating the sculpture began to align. “Once the arboretum said they were interested,” he said, “so many big pieces just started falling into place. I am amazed at how many people have shared in our passion and said, ‘How can I help?’” A location on the arboretum grounds has been selected and approved, and a concrete pad is being prepared for the intrepid sculpture. Then, on July 21, torches once again cut through the metal tying “Night Winds” to the earth. Workers from Action Towing removed the sculpture from the pecan grove it had called home for more than 25 years, loaded it onto a truck and transported it to Modisette Welding in Kilgore, where its restoration is underway. A voice from the past For Doris Daniel, the restoration represents an opportunity to reconnect “Night Winds” with the vision of the artist who created it. John and Doris married in 1960 after his service in the U.S. Army. In 1962, he graduated from Lamar University, and the couple moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in studio art. Doris said that, unlike many artists, John rarely talked about his work. He believed the artwork itself should provide the explanation. “When he gave a speech at a retrospective of his work, he said very little,” she said. “I think he thought making the art is enough.” Doris believes that same philosophy should guide the restoration. “My opinion is that it should be replicated as he saw it, as he designed it,” she said. “I think the green [repaint] was just an answer to the confusion and the rejection.” Jason remembers that rejection vividly. He was a high school student when “Night Winds” was removed from its original location. The phone call came in the middle of the night. “The phone rang at an ungodly hour,” he recalled. “I remember my dad answering it and saying, ‘Oh, damn, really?’” Jason, an artist and teacher himself, sees another possibility for the sculpture’s future. Rather than choosing completely between John’s original color scheme and the dark green version that has become familiar to generations of Longview residents, he suggests a compromise: subtle variations of green beneath the sculpture’s original black forms. “Go for the best of both worlds,” he said. “Go with your naturalistic colors but create enough variety within them, a subtle variety that both blends in and stands out.” The debate over the appearance of “Night Winds” may not yet be settled, but the sculpture itself is already undergoing another transformation. At Modisette Welding, workers have begun removing decades of paint and corrosion through sandblasting. They are replacing the rust-damaged base and preparing the sculpture for its installation at the arboretum. Grimes said the sculpture will be repainted with high-quality automotive paint in hopes of protecting it from the elements for years to come. When the work is complete, “Night Winds” will become the centerpiece of a retrospective exhibition celebrating John’s life and work. It will also become something it has not been for a long time: impossible to overlook. Ultimately, the decision about how “Night Winds” will look belongs to a seven-person committee at the Longview arboretum. But after spending a day inside John’s studio, surrounded by his work and listening to those closest to him reflect on his intentions, the question seems larger than a choice of paint colors. “Night Winds” has already survived controversy, neglect and abandonment. It has been removed, rescued, repainted and rediscovered. Now it is being given another chance to speak. And perhaps that is the most fitting tribute to an artist who believed his work should speak for itself. – Les Hassell is a Longview News-Journal multimedia journalist. Email him at [email protected] .