This didn’t start out to be about bricks but quickly wound its way over that direction. I found this set of pictures in the collection of Houston Post negatives downtown at the HMRC. The first one in the envelope was of Rice art professor David Parsons welding something. My first reaction was to wonder not what he was doing but where he was doing it. It doesn’t look at all familiar:
The next image in the batch immediately cleared up both issues. He was working on one of the two large sculptures he did for the new science buildings. I believe this is the one for Geology. It hadn’t occurred to me that they would have been executed on site but they were so big it makes sense. Both of these sculptures are now long gone and I have never found a single picture of either one of them. This is partly my fault as the one by the east staircase of Biology was still there as of about fifteen years ago and I failed to take a photo when I had the chance. If you happen to have one I’d love to know about it, partly to assuage my guilt.
The last picture finally gets us to some bricks. Here’s Parsons examining one of the bricks he made for the buildings, with the mold in his hands no less. I’m guessing this is Anderson Biology:
And a Thresher article explains how and why he did it:
Bonus: In January, 2017 the St. Joe Brick guy brought samples for the new performing arts building. I caught them over by the Humanities Building. Whatever they picked is what’s currently sitting out in the parking lot.
Extra Bonus: We’re doing renovations at my house and there’s pile of them in my driveway too.
