Friday, June 28, 2013

Grounds for Sculpture

You have almost certainly seen the sculptures that Seward Johnson makes, life-sized people in various walks of life, painted with weather-resistant automobile paint in almost life-like colors, standing, sitting, or horsing around in almost life-like attitudes in every kind of weather. There are two of them right on Bridge Street in New Hope, one a Bohemian-looking plein air painter engaged in his craft and the other a pained-looking woman of a certain age carrying packages and apparently waiting to cross Bridge Street. Don't stop for her, if you see her. She's, um, a sculpture.

In fact, they're everywhere. But soon they will gather at the Grounds for Sculpture, where a Seward Johnson retrospective is taking shape even as we speak. I visited the Grounds for Sculpture yesterday and saw many interesting and wonderful things, some of them sculptures by Seward Johnson. The gardens are lovely. A number of the art works are moving and arresting. But the most arresting image I saw was in the parking lot as we were leaving. It was a cowboy leaning nonchalantly on a fence, traveling across the parking lot on the horns of a fork lift. No doubt he was one of the first arrivals at Mr. Johnson's retrospective show.


Kate Gallison

5 comments:

  1. My goodness, Kate, I saw that cowboy on the corner of Lexington and East 93rd Street yesterday right at my building. He asked me how to get to the nearest bar! I thought he looked kinda plastered.... TJStraw

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Plastered, yes, and covered with automobile paint to protect him from the weather.

      Delete
    2. The pun also rises. And so does it SET!

      Delete
  2. The driver, I take it, was real!!! What a great shot, Kate.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks. The shot could have been better. The driver was a handsome feller, and very dark, so that I failed to get enough light on his face to show his friendly expression. He stopped the lift truck and waited while I figured out how to take his picture with the IPhone.

    ReplyDelete