Laura Pope Forester (also spelled Forrester;[1] 31 January 1873 – 1953)[2] was a self-taught American folk artist, who created one of the earliest outdoor art environments in the United States.
[3] By the time she died in 1953, the space around Forester's rural Georgia home and store featured over 200 concrete sculptures, many of which celebrated notable women in history and mythology.
[8] Her works depicted people, particularly women, whose traits and achievements she admired, and included Cleopatra, World War I's Red Cross nurses, and Scarlett O’Hara.
[9] Forester typically built her figures using found objects, such as scrap iron and tin cans, which she then covered in concrete, and often coloured using handmade dyes.
Besides using scrap iron from junkyards, discarded tin cans and other waste material as braces for her statues, she painted the figures with liquids of many flowers and brightly colored berries…[11]A journalist for the Macon Telegraph described Forester herself as:a gracious, friendly lady, tiny brown curls slipping from the knot worn high upon her head, cool clear complexion, light brown eyes which brightened when she talked, and a charming smile.