For more information:
• Bright Foundry, 1621 E. Washington St., Louisville, KY 40206, (502) 589-4337

Producer: Charlee Heaton Pagoulatos

Monumental Art

Sculptor Barney Bright

Visitors to Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery often wonder at the many beautiful sculptures that can be found there—and they often return, guests in tow, especially to see them again. Many of those sculptures were the work of Louisville’s own Barney Bright. In this segment, taped in 1996, Kentucky Life visits Bright’s studio to meet the man behind the monuments.

In addition to the bronzes at Cave Hill, Bright’s work includes a Holocaust Memorial at the Jewish Community Center in Louisville and a piece called The Search outside the public library in New Albany, IN.

Barney Bright died in 1997. The foundry he established to cast his work is now operated by his son, Jep.

For more information:
• Mark Lawhorn and Mary Ellen Pesek, (859) 384-3920

Producer: Donna Ross

A Boone County Garden Spot

Big Bone Gardens

Husband-and-wife team Mark Lawhorn and Mary Ellen Pesek of Northern Kentucky loved their extensive gardens so much that they opened them to the public. Their six acres are filled with native plants and water gardens—a Kentucky Garden of Eden transformed from a patch of vertical scrub surrounding a forbidding house.

To get there, take the Walton/Verona exit off Interstate 75 (about 15 miles south of Cincinnati) and follow the signs to Big Bone Lick State Park. Big Bone Gardens is across the road.

For more information:
• Cane Ridge Meetinghouse, P.O. Box 26, Paris, KY 40362-0026, (859) 987-5350. Books about the Cane Ridge revival and the nationwide revival movement of which it was a part include James Rogers’ The Cane Ridge Meeting House (Cincinnati, 1916); John Boles’ The Great Revival, 1787-1805: The Origins of the Southern Evangelical Mind (Lexington, KY, 1972); and Dickson Bruce’s And They All Sang Hallelujah: Plain-Folk Camp-Meeting Religion, 1800-1845 (Knoxville, TN, 1974).

Producer: Ernie Lee Martin

That Old-Time Religion

The Great Cane Ridge Revival

In the summer of 1801, 18 Presbyterian ministers, plus several Baptists and Methodists, gathered at a Presbyterian meeting house in Bourbon County for one of the largest “camp meeting” revivals ever seen. Thousands of people camped out to hear the preachers’ message of unity among denominations and a return to biblical basics. Many of the sermons had social and political messages, too, inspiring some revivalgoers to return home and emancipate their slaves.

The Cane Ridge revival is credited as the impetus for the founding of the Christian Church and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denominations and with helping to attract the Shakers to Kentucky. The meeting house, thought to be the largest one-room log structure in the country, still stands near Paris.

The Cane Ridge Meetinghouse and museum are located on KY 537 off U.S. 460. They are open daily from April through October.