Herron Briggs And His Famous Airplanes

Driving along Church Street near the intersection of Augusta Road, you can see a small number of Mr. Briggs' whirl-i-gig works displayed across the yard, spinning in the wind along the top edge of the embankment just above the sidewalk. Not much remains, but Briggs' yard, which also served as a garden and workshop was a very well known site to daily commuting Greenvillians for many years. In late May, 1999, Herron Briggs passed away.

He constructed these airplanes out of found materials such as wood, tin cans, aerosol cans, various pipe, tubing, other hardware items, wheels from lawn mowers and toys, and he used fan blades for propellers. He painted the planes bright colors and positioned them on tables and posts where they would catch the wind and perform for the traffic below until a buyer came along.
Briggs had buyers for these folk art airplanes coming from Atlanta, and even as far away as Chicago. They came from all over, paying from around sixty or eighty bucks for smaller sizes to hundreds of dollars for the big ones. Over the years, he became very well known around here. Now with Herron Briggs gone, the old familiar hilltop arrangement has begun to fade away.

BACK to the
Greenville area photos main list
or use your BACK button to return to the page that brought you here.

- - -

Main menu sections of this website

Greenville area info | Memo-News | Area photos
Art news | History | Outdoor-indoor | Pets & animals | Links | Home | E-mail

About This Website

Email Privacy Policy: Your e-mail is encouraged and welcomed and your privacy is important. This Web site is maintained by one person and your e-mail goes to that individual only. Your e-mail address is not traded, sold, or offered in any way to anyone. You will not receive junk e-mail from this Web site, So fire away.

© 2006 greenvillesouth.com

--gs

Herron Briggs identified his airplanes by painting on names of real aircraft such as B-17, B-29, C-130, C-47, P-38, TWA, and so on.
Briggs signed most of the planes by adding "HB" at the tail of each plane.

In southern folk culture, artists create the things they make, driven by many inspirations, as a natural part of their lives. Traditionally, whether or not their constructions will ever be bought and collected, they must make their ideas real. Many, if not most, don't consider what they do as "art" and they don't call themselves "artists."
Herron Briggs' airplanes are a part of Greenville lore and if we see his work and hear tell of his friendliness toward visitors, we discover a rare world. I'm not sure what it converts us to, but we see in it a little of "the light that has lighted the world," as the songs says.