5 Introduction to 2023-2024 Essays
Scott Matthews
The essays in our second issue of Moss Culture spotlight people who, though largely forgotten today, blazed vital and enduring trails in Jacksonville’s cultural history. In her essay, “The Vision of Memphis Wood: Artist, Educator, Advocate,” Pam Landa captures the unique character and contributions of Memphis Wood whose art and teaching revolutionized the understanding and appreciation of modern art in Jacksonville between 1929 and 1984. Wood encouraged generations of students to create innovative art without fear of judgement. She also helped establish the Jacksonville Art Museum, the precursor to today’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), that introduced the Jacksonville community to the avant-garde.
In the early 1980s, Ray McKelvey lit another new path by igniting Jacksonville’s punk rock scene with his band, Stevie Stiletto and the Switchblades. As Constantino Ventresca shows in his essay, “Never Mind the Pistols, Here’s the Switchblades: An Account of Punk Rock in Jacksonville,” the band embraced a do-it-yourself (DIY) ethos that echoed Memphis Wood’s call for innovation and non-conformity. In a city known almost exclusively as a center of Southern rock, Stevie Stiletto and the Switchblades provided Jacksonville youths with a rawer and more rebellious sound and movement that lives on today.
Though not artists or musicians like Memphis Wood and Ray McKelvey, Sydney Smith and St. Elmo “Chic” Acosta nevertheless created their own enduring contribution to Jacksonville’s culture during the early twentieth. In his essay, “The Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens: A Treasure of the City,” Brian Little uncovers the roles these men played in creating Jacksonville’s modern zoo during the 1910s and 1920s. Little also traces the zoo’s history up the present day. He shows how Smith and Acosta’s legacy lives on at today’s zoo, which continues to educate residents about animal safety, conservation efforts, and our entwined destines with the animal kingdom.
Taken together these essays emphasize a common theme: our city’s culture has always been a creation of people who decided to stand in a bright sun and cast a sharp shadow. Their examples should still inspire us. Don’t like what you see, hear, or feel today? Then invent, invent, invent.
