I've been having an artsy time lately.
I've already told you, in my previous post, about our Friday night viewing of the sculpture floating above Boston. The day before that was artsy as well. Two friends and I took a road trip to the amazing Storm King Art Center, which is situated in the beautiful landscape of the lower Hudson Valley, about an hour north of NYC. All photos in this post are from that day. That's me on the right, below, in a sculpture by Isamu Noguchi. I think perhaps we shouldn't have been in there, but in my defense, she was in there first and I was talked into joining her. (I know better than to argue with a pregnant lady!)
Storm King is an outdoor sculpture park, and the sculptures, many of which are monumental, are situated within the fields, woods, and hills of the 500 acres of the park. And we visited about 1/2 the park by foot... Yup, 250 acres of walking. One of my friends was wearing a FitBit and she'd competed the day's quota of steps even before we stopped for lunch. A tram circles the park, so we viewed the rest of the sculptures that way, but it is not ideal. You really want to be able to walk right up to them, and experience them in their location. But there's no way to do it all in one day, unless you have much better legs and feet than me! (By the way, my legs are really short, so I always figure I take more steps than anyone else, just trying to keep up!)
The piece photographed above and below is by Richard Sera. It made me think of the monolith from 2001 a Space Odyssey, for those of you who are old enough to remember the movie.
Anyhow, I took hundreds of photos, but I'll just show you some favorites here. These next photos are from a part of the park referred to as Calder Field.
I was really intrigued by the special exhibition of work by Lynda Benglis, called Water Sources. I would especially adore having the pink fountain in front of my house!
I'm fascinated by the balance on the piece pictured below, by Menashe Kadishman.
This really cool piece below is by Ursula von Rydingsvard.
Below left, the tallest sculpture in the park, is by Tal Streeter.
On the right is Frog Legs by Mark Di Suvero. We thought, from some angles, that it looked like Don Quixote, but couldn't quite figure out the frog's legs.
below, Lichtenstein's Mermaid
I loved the way this piece below, by Ronald Bladen, looked totally different at different times of day, and from various points of view.
The Storm King Art Center was founded in 1960, and in 1972 they began building the collection of large scale sculptures, including commissioned site-specific pieces. In 1973, I was a college student at SUNY New Paltz, about 1/2 hour away, and was taking a course in color (darkroom) photography. A classmate and I got in my little junker car each weekend and picked a direction to drive and search for places to photograph. I remember, on one of these drives, saying "Hey! What's that in the distance?? A giant red thing on a hill! It looks like a sculpture! Look! Another!" But we were on a high-speed road and it was gone before we figured out what we'd seen. I didn't learn about Storm King until years later, but I'm sure that I'd seen some of the earliest installations, perhaps these pieces below!
Three-legged Buddha by Zhang Huan
below, site specific wall by Andy Goldsworthy
and another site specific piece, by Maya Lin, called Storm King Wavefield
If you ever get a chance, get on your comfiest walking shoes, bring your camera, and enjoy your day at Storm King! You won't regret it, I promise! I'd like to get back in another season - perhaps when autumn colors are at their peak, or maybe in November with a dusting of snow?
I'll end with two interesting images, I hope. On the left, looking inside a Louise Nevelson sculpture, where a bird has made its nest, and on the right, the elevator. Yup, seriously; it is an elevator!
