Category parks
Jaume Plensa’s Sculptures Make Many Meaningful Connections
Jaume Plensa’s Humming came to deCordova Sculpture Park almost ten years ago, generating innumerable reminders of how powerful sculpture can be. As a guide at the park, Humming has given me reliable ways to connect with others about how and why a tall translucent entrancing head might come to be. Humming has brought perspective to other art in the park, and it has led me to more sculpture by the same artist as well.
Metal Preserves and Transforms Features of Trees in Art by Ed Shay and Letha Wilson
Ed Shay’s ten-foot-tall bronze “Acadian Gyro” entered deCordova Sculpture park about three decades ago. Letha Wilson’s nearly as tall cor-ten steel sculpture “Hawaii California Steel(Figure/Ground)” came in about two years ago. Until now I hadn’t considered their common key elements: 1) attention to the forms of leaves and branches, 2) expressive rendering of those forms in durable metals ( bronze and steel) 3)relation to the seasonally changing foliage of nearby trees. My awareness grew from posting about four more obviously tree-related artworks in the park and noting further connections. Though I have been a volunteer guide in the park for almost two decades, this focus led me deeper into resources with heightened reasons to share them.
Winter Weather Combines with Outdoor Art: Monique Aimee’s Brine Tanks Mural, James Tyler’s Ten Figures
Photos from recent winter visits add perspective and updates to earlier posts in other seasons.
Artists Myoung Ho Lee and B. Wurtz both Focus on Single Trees at deCordova Sculpture Park
Artists Myoung Ho Lee and B. Wurtz both focus carefully on single trees in these two samples from larger projects that reflect their own unique creative processes. Their artworks thrive on the trees and sky through seasonal or daily changes of their current settings in deCordova Sculpture Park. My iPhone photos here hint at those, while quotes give basic background. Links (in red) to intriguing resources reveal fascinating features of both artists’ approaches and results.
Murals by Sophy Tuttle, Solei, and Ann Lewis Highlight Pumphouses on the Charles River Esplanade
More than a year ago, three artists adorned all sides and surfaces of three different pumphouses on the Esplanade. I had meant to connect and celebrate these accomplishments at that time. Now at the start of a new year, I can do that with additional appreciation of their presence. Though pumphouses along the Charles River have always been essential in regulating water drainage, their cement block structures were neglected and defaced until funds from the Esplanade Association allowed artists to transform their appearances in 2019.
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.
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.
Colorful Characters Brighten Brine Tanks: Mural by Monique Aimee in Cambridge
Selected and funded by Percent-for-Art program in Cambridge, Monique Aimee proposed, planned, and painted her mural on all sides of the four tall brine tanks along the lot for Saint Peter’s Field. She began near the end of June and finished near the end of August. My photos here come from a few visits there throughout the summer. The links should take you to videos and exciting photos of the work in progress on Monique Aimee’s Instagram site: https://www.instagram.com/moniqueaimee/ The quotes here should give background that lets you visit in person or online.
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.
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.
