Category environmental sculpture
Art Grows from Trees: Alan Sonfist and Richard Rosenblum at deCordova
Sonfist’s The Endangered Species of New England has been part of the Sculpture Park since 2013. Rosenblum’s Venusvine, created 1990, has been there since 1996. Both artworks reflect their artists’ deeply rooted work with trees. Both are metal renderings of natural forms. Both artworks have decisive locations in the park. They’ve held their ground while other artworks have moved around, left or entered in recent years.
Artists Help Us Learn from Trees: Maren Hassinger and Josephine Halvorson at deCordova Sculpture Park
Josephine Halvorson’s Measure (Tree) and Maren Hassinger’s Monuments 3 and 6 have expanded my range in relating to trees. That is true for several other artworks at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, so I’ll hope to follow up in future posts with more examples. But I’ll start with these two artists because their processes give specific attention to trees. Measure (Tree) involved the artist in close observation while painting a tree’s elements onto a wooden plank. Both Monuments involved many people in carefully weaving assorted branches of local trees into geometric structures and patterns. Quotes from the Trustees website explain more. Links to each artist’s site offer context. My photos give glimpses of the presence of these artworks among trees in the park in different seasons.
Arlington’s Artist-in-Residence Michelle Lougee Highlights the Existence of Persistence on the Bikeway
Many hands and minds created each of nearly forty unique forms installed among the trees two months ago to survive four seasons of New England weather. Their shapes and textures have become more distinct since October’s shade from autumn leaves has gone. Like others who use the bikeway, I’ll watch for ways the art will change with wind, snow, sleet and sunlight. And I’ll keep thinking of the meanings of “persistence.” Meanwhile, here are quotes, links, and images that should reveal the resourcefulness, resilience, and reasoning that have carefully kept this prescient project going.
Panels from Significant Summer 2020 Extend Mystic River Mural and Affirm Hopes
In my July post about the Mystic River Mural Project, I was hopeful but not sure that the Summer 2020 project would work through all the complications of the pandemic. Now I can gladly share glimpses of the inspiring outcome with photos of the 2020 panels added this fall on Mystic Avenue. For context, read quotes with links to informative sources. Also note a new video that adds an enriching overview of the whole project.
Respond to the Spirit of Art Ramble around Fairyland Pond in Concord
My goal now is to get the word out about a wonderful way to get away, though this temporary exhibit in Concord’s Hapgood Wright Town Forest won’t let you get away from the issues of climate change. I went once last week and hope to return as often as possible before the last day, November 8. I hope to post again with more photos and reflections on water, but here are quotes and links to lead you into the forest, around the pond, with art and poetry.
Applaud Playground Turtles and their Creators: Nancy Schön and Lilli Ann Killen Rosenberg
Endurance is a quality shared by the turtle sculptures in this post. Lilli Ann Roseberg’s colorful concrete turtles in Cambridge have been ridden, jumped on, snowed in, flooded over and lots more in the past three decades. Nancy Schön’s bronze Myrtle the Turtle was bound up and relocated within Boston’s Myrtle Street Playground soon after settling in last year. These sculptures endured isolation while playgrounds were closed in the spring and then cautiously reopened.
Gardens in Radcliffe Yard Contain Changing and Constant Art
While kept apart from most indoor art throughout the spring of 2020, I became especially grateful for the outdoor art in Radcliffe Yard. I managed to post about one sculpture then, with intentions to mention more. Here now is a broader view that encompasses other highlights of Radcliffe Yard.
See Poems in New Ways along the Bikeway in Arlington and Somerville
This week I enjoyed Walking Poetry in Arlington and Poetry on the Path in Somerville. Both added to my awareness of when, how, and where a poem can move people. I should post swiftly and simply with quotes, links, and photos that let anyone who lives near these locations experience poems that may be elsewhere in a week or two.
Playgrounds Thrive on Art by Mitch Ryerson and Gail Boyajian
As playgrounds have cautiously reopened, I can happily share photos of art by Mitch Ryerson and Gail Boyajian. This lifts my own sad restrictions on earlier posts about these artists and others with work outside Maud Morgan Arts. Now I can show and celebrate art that was meant to be where children play.
John Tagiuri’s Art Can Open Doors in Surprising Ways
The two giant paintbrush “door pulls” created by John Tagiuri for Maud Morgan Visual Arts in 2009 when the center first opened now must wait for a post-lockdown reopening, whenever that will be. Meanwhile my attention to these and other artworks outside the center pulled me into John Tagiuri’s website, which is rich in samples of his other projects, all displaying unique combinations of strong concepts with playful twists. From those, I located the towering endless-column lamps over the basketball court in Sennott Park, at Broadway, Cambridge.
Art Outdoors 