Vivian Alexander Gallery is mounting a one Day Exhibit of a tribute to A. Hayes Town, the most influential architect in the history of Louisiana.

Hayes Town grew up in Lafayette and graduated in 1922 from USL, now ULL. Many hundreds of examples of his architecture abound in the greater Lafayette area. One of the more famous is the UL Library on St. Mary Blvd; at one time called the Pink Palace.

Twenty two years ago Alexander Caldwell was commissioned to create an egg sculpture to commemorate this famous architect's work. Alexander chose the Museum on St. Mary Blvd. as the center of his commissioned piece; he decided that this structure embodied everything that was Town's legacy as well as his major contribution to Lafayette and USL historical architecture.

In addition to an exact scale model of the Museum, many small and innocuous areas of the sculpture are embedded with symbols that make it a historical chronicle that is the fame of Hayes Town.

On the instructions of the commission client, Alexander presented the sculpture to Hayes at his storied home in Baton Rouge on the LSU lakes. Hayes admired the piece, and then asked Alexander to present the sculpture to the USL Museum as a permanent gift from him.

Mr. Town's instructions were carried out; the piece was presented to the University and promptly placed in the Museum vaults, secure and unseen for the last two decades.

With the gracious generosity of the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum this Hayes Town Egg sculpture will be on display for the first time ever. The Vivian Alexander Gallery Trunk Show on Thursday October 23rd. at the Acadiana Center for the Arts on Vermilion St. will host the event from One PM to eight PM for one day only.

For a detailed description of the A. Hayes Town Building including the materials and workmanship involved, visit the University Art Museum

Sculpture Details:

The sculpture is approximately 14 inches tall and 8 inches wide with the doors open. The egg is an emu, of the ostrich family. The wooden base is old cypress from a Hayes Town house under construction. On top of the wood base is a square piece of roof slate from another of his houses.

On the left door, to recognize Hayes’s penchant for close association with the carpenters, is a pair of saw horses holding a cypress board and on the wall above are various hand carpenter tools on a rack. The right door holds a rolled up set of plans, a "T" square, and a plastic triangle-his tools of the trade.

The scale model building inside the egg shell is a scale model of the A. Hayes Town Museum Building on St. Mary Blvd. in Lafayette, Louisiana.

The sculpture was created in 1986 as a commissioned piece by Alexander Caldwell. The owner, a supplier of old cypress beams for home construction, was from the Baton Rouge area.