Sketchcrawl #23–and our regularly scheduled monthly one coincided!

This time we knew it would be HOT and HUMID, so I arranged for us to be able to get into the 1937 Art Deco Hall of Waters, soon to be our new (air conditioned!) visitors center. It was a great place to sketch architecture, and an amazing example of a Depression-era WPA project!

I still didn’t quite manage to capture the scale of the tall ceilings…and had to include a bit of the detail of tilework–this around the walls and between the windows in the great hall.

The Mayan-looking face is from the facade of the building, around the doors…there was a great deal of fascination in things Mayan/Aztecan in the early decades of the 20th century.

Of course, there still is! These were among the first truly urban settlements in the pre-Columbian Americas, from 2000 B.C. to the Mayan speakers of today. The settlements, often hidden in deep jungles, continue to draw visitors to Central America, in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, when conditions permit.

They had a written language in the form of hieroglyphics, as well as a truly advanced calendar and great cities. Interesting to see the influence here in Midwestern North America!

Only a few of us were able to make it this time, but we had a wonderful crawl together, ending up with a late gourmet lunch at The Mercantile, and time to share our sketches…