On the move: Where is the MOSH Mouth 'headed' next in Jacksonville?

Jacksonville historian Wayne Wood and his team of helpers headed to James Weldon Johnson Park this week for the third move of the iconic MOSH Mouth sculpture, this time to Wood's Riverside Avenue home.

The 17-foot-long face with a wide-open mouth has a 13-plus-year history in Jacksonville starting when it arrived at the Museum of Science & History on Feb. 5, 2009, and served as the entranceway to the museum's "The Body Within" exhibit.

The mouth remained inside the museum until February 2016 when it was moved to the now-renamed James Weldon Johnson Park downtown.

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"It's been probably the most popular selfie spot in the entire city of Jacksonville, but unfortunately it has deteriorated, been damaged, has graffiti on it so it couldn't stay in the park any longer," said Wood, founder of Riverside Avondale Preservation and the Riverside Arts Market.

With the park in the early stages of a two-year renovation project that did not include the MOSH Mouth, Wood came up with a plan and moved the new piece of yard art to his and Lana Shuttleworth's Riverside home for repairs and repainting.

In Tuesday's summer heat he and his team plotted out and orchestrated its relocation. With crowbars, straps, boards, shims, ramps and an assortment of tools and equipment — as well as some good, old-fashioned muscle, knowhow and ingenuity — they managed to secure the massive sculpture onto a flatbed truck for its eye-catching trip through Riverside.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: MOSH museum mouth sculpture moves to Wayne Wood's Jacksonville home