All Roads Lead to the Future - Depot Park - Gainesville, Florida - Mike Segal

Acrylic on Canvas
24" x 30"
 
"The painting depicts the view from Depot Park in Gainesville, Florida. It tells the story of the development of Gainesville from the beginning of European settlement, in 1606, when the first Spanish mission was established on the Santa Fe River along the Apalacha Trail that led from St. Augustine to Tallahassee, depicted as the engine number on the side of the locomotive. The Santa Fe Mission was the first interior European settlement in North America. The location of that settlement is today a part of the River Rise State Park on the Santa Fe River. The railroad came to Gainesville in the mid 1800’s and changed Gainesville from Hog Town, a small backwater in the middle of the Florida wilderness, into a growing town and then the large city of today. The old horse and buggy is intended to bring the viewer from the 1800’s past to the present where the Cade Museum is depicted in the background. The Cade Museum is the museum teaching creativity and invention to the designers of the future. On the left is Prometheus bringing fire-technology to humans, which is also the function of the museum, to facilitate the inventors of new technology and bring these discoveries for use in our society. The middle picture is an abstract image which represents the modern technology going through the invention process, transforming the new information into usable form, and then once again, Prometheus brings these new inventions to human society."