Overview

"Meeting McCay" has quite a few posts under its belt now... So I thought I'd take a second, back up, and provide an overview of what we're doing here and where we hope to go.

Late last year a small group of Spring Lake residents met to discuss fellow Spring Laker, Winsor McCay, and the disturbing lack of recognition here in his hometown. We brainstormed fabulous ways to mark his time spent here, but quickly realized our first step was going to have to be Education. Before a town can applaud a man, they have to know who he is. And very few people in Spring Lake had ever heard of Winsor McCay. So we came up with five steps to reintroduce Spring Lake to its most famous unknown son.

Step One: Start a good collection of McCay resources at the Spring Lake District Library
And boy, they've done that. When we first started meeting, the library had maybe two books on McCay and one DVD. In just a year they've amassed a Super collection of resources. And they are prominently displayed in their own special area. I try to review many of these resources here on the site as they come in.

Step Two: Start this blog
This is the 60th entry so far. Hopefully "Meeting McCay" can be a one-stop-spot for anyone seeking information on McCay - his life, his art, and they many ways he's been honored over the years. And it's intended to be place (for anyone who is interested) to keep up-to-date on the progress we're making in Spring Lake MI to create a permanent, physical, tribute to the man and his legacy.

Step Three:
Launch "McCay Day"
The first McCay Day was held in Spring Lake last month, and it was a great success! (You can read about it in posts below...) We hope to make McCay Day an annual event. This last year was a learning experience, and we hope to make the event bigger, grander, and farther-reaching year by year.

Step Four: Post a Historical Marker
In less than a year, we've accomplished steps 1 through 3. Step four, a Marker, is our current focus. Right now there is Nothing physically acknowledging McCay's presence in Spring Lake. Not a plaque, not a sign, not a name on a bench. We'd like to get a big historical marker, with good biographical content, and place it near the location of his childhood home or school. We're looking at our choices, examining costs, and weighing all the options. This is a huge next step.

Step Five: A Permanent Physical Memorial
This is the ultimate goal. We've talked about lots of ways to pay tribute to McCay in his hometown. Here are a few of the many things we've discussed:

• Name a park after him
• Name a street after him
• Start a McCay Art Scholarship for local students
• Hold an annual Film Festival
• Sprinkle bronze Dinosaur Footprints around town with McCay content
• Start a collection of original McCay art
• Start a Tribute Gallery of art by other professionals inspired by McCay
• Build a Statue

All these are good ideas, and we hope to do as many of them as we can. But I think our hearts are set on the Statue most of all. A statue of McCay... or of Gertie... or of Little Nemo characters... or all of them mingled together. A statue to be placed either in an existing park, or a new park designed specifically for this. We're dreaming big.


Illustrator Aaron Zenz whipped up this concept drawing for us, and I think it's a good place to start. I won't repeat in this post what I've already said before, so you can read more about the statue ideas here. But that's what the Big Goal is. That's our Rarebit Dream. It'll be expensive, and take lots of planning and fund raising. But I think McCay deserves a monument Somewhere in the world. And why not here in his hometown?

So Reader, what do you make of all this? Is McCay and his work worthy of a physical Tribute? Feel free to throw your thoughts into the comments area...

NOW article

The North Ottawa Weekly had a nice article on McCay tribute efforts in Spring Lake. Here are some excerpts... I'll see if I can find a link to the full article...

A Noted Spring Lake Cartoonist is Drawing More Local Interest

[The committee] is focused on establishing a memorial to the storied artist [Winsor McCay]. The first step is to make McCay a part of this year's Spring Lake Heritage Festival.

Efforts to recognize McCay's hometown began nearly 20 years ago when [local illustrator Kevin] Collier first realized McCay was actually from Spring Lake, but nobody knew it.

"I became aware that nobody in the town knew about him. This obscure piece of history had been buried for years," he said. "Not even a plaque, not even a park bench had his name on it. I was surprised to find that."

Collier says the committee wants to make sure McCay is strongly and authentically recognized by the residents of the village in ways that last for years and years. The committee is excited about having McCay as part of the Heritage Festival, but it has a vision to establish a memorial park as well.

[Aaron] Zenz has sketched a vision of what the park could look like, and the centerpiece is a bronze statue of Gertie the dinosaur, one of McCay's most popular characters.

"We would like to have a piece of land that is a park and a statue of Gertie for kids to climb on," said Collier. "It really needs to be a place for kids to play."

"I think it's something that Spring Lake can identify with," said [committee chair Mark] Miller. "Every community has something they are especially proud of, and [McCay is someone] known around the world."

Dream Memorial

This is only dreaming, mind you...

There are quite a few ideas we've tossed around regarding how to honor Winsor McCay here in Spring Lake MI, his hometown. This is just one of them. You can't talk tribute without having statues come to mind. Here's a quick sketch by illustrator Aaron Zenz:


This is just a starting place to get some thoughts rolling. When the idea of a Winsor McCay memorial pops up, I think the universal first reaction is "Gertie statue!"

In my opinion, I think a Gertie statue would have to meet two requirements. Number one: it's got to be a real statue, like bronze. And number two: it has to be designed in such a way that kids are encouraged to climb all over it. You've gotta. I mean, even Winsor McCay got to ride Gertie, right? So keep it safe just like the sketch above (don't have Gertie's neck up high so kids are falling off). But at the same time, don't sacrifice number one - keep it real. It can't be some kind of foamy playground equipment.

The Central Park Alice in Wonderland statue in New York is a super example.


I think it's great that the above concept drawing also includes Little Nemo characters scattered around. And just as food for thought... at the park, wouldn't it be cool if you could also sit inside something like this:



Or if you could look in mirrors that do this:



Again we're at the very beginning here. This is just dreaming. But for Winsor McCay, wild Dreams are more than appropriate...