Saturday I photographed my professor’s sister’s wedding in Massachusetts, so I journeyed home to Acton for a night. When I woke up, I had intensions of jumping on the Fitchburg line and making my way into Boston to the Isabella Gardner Museum. However, as I was searching for an old Charlie pass, I noticed what a nice day it was. I asked my mother if she would want to be my sudden company and join me in visiting the Decordova Museum. It was only about fifteen minutes from my house, but for some reason I had never been (probably because I always just wound up jumping on the train by myself and heading into Boston). It was cool that my mother was interested in going. We don’t do many things together and both just have hectic schedules. The weather promised to be perfect for outdoor sculpture viewing.
The Decordova helped to demonstrate the importance or space, whether initially standing on its own and unnoticed, or the pieces themselves creating a sense of place. This concept was crucial to witness in person. It also got me wanting to play with material and space. It was an inspiring experience, and I’m grateful that my mother wanted to share it with me. She explained how my sister had taken art courses there when she was a teenager and explained a little bit of the back story. It came to me in fragments as she was recalling a story she knew so well years earlier. Apparently the original house that we saw used to belong to a wealthy woman. This woman left her house and all of the art that she had collected to be turned into a museum for all to see. It was a great discussion to share with my mother.
Before we made our way to the Decordova, we drove by Walden pond. I popped out and snagged a few photographs as I reminisced about the Henry David Thoreau that tenth grade English class had brought. Nostalgia.
(The last photograph I had also taken about a year ago on a summer’s afternoon).
The Decordova Museum.
(the original house)
The first sculpture we drove past when entering was Douglas Kornfeld’s “Ozymandias” (2008).
The piece had a plaque near by that quoted words from Percy Bysshe Shelley. This was especially interesting because in my Experimental Film class right now, we have been studying Brakhage, who relates film to poetry and references Shelley. Seeing this in person was a great connection to what I have been reading about, and physically walking up to imagery that associates with words I had been reading was powerfully inspiring. Laid out before me was a direct relationship between word and image.
The plaque read:
"Ozymandias -- I met a traveler from an antique land/Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,/Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,/And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,/Tell that it's sculptor well those passions read/Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things/The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:/And on the pedestal these words appear:/'My name is Ozmandias, king of kings:/Look on my works Ye mighty, and despair!'/Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bane/The lone and level sands stretch far away."
--Percy Bysshe Shelley.
I am almost positive too that I read this exact poem in sixth grade and had to draw what we thought Ozymandias looked like. This was another astounding connection.
Almost every sculpture caught my attention as I felt like the children that were there running from sculpture to sculpture. One piece that was sprawled out among a section of the grass that I could not seem to walk away from was Rick Brown's "The Butterfly Effect" (2004). I kept eyeing each angle and layering of the concrete.
One piece that was interesting in how it was juxtaposed against the trees was Sol LeWift's "Tower (DC)" (1989-2009).
There were multiple ideas of industrialized material standing against nature:
George Greenamyer's "Mass Art Vehicle" (1970).
Fletcther Benton's "Donut with 3 Balls" (2002).
Albert Paley's "Apollo" (1996).
Certain pieces were also more supported in being in an outdoor environment. Some pieces seemed to have captured a nature atheistic that was enhanced by being outdoors. Or I suppose that one could argue that I analyzed it in this specific way because of where these pieces were viewed.
Richard Lobe's "Environmental Impact Statement" (1988).
Marianna Pineda's "Eve Celebrant" (1991, cast 2001-2002)
Elliot Offner's "Figure From the Sea" (1964).
Kitty Wale's "Feral Goose" (2005).
John Buck's "Dream World" (1988).
Breon Dunigan's "Guardian, Hearing Trumpet, and Torsion" (2003).
Richard Rosenblum's "Venusvine" (1990).
One sculpture that I loved had human limbs branching and rooting:
Michael Reese's "Putto 4 over 4" (2004).
Not only was space highlighted in an outdoor sense, but later stepping into the museum, space was something that was created. One of the main artists, Leonardo drew, manipulates found objects in occupying a space:
"Number 123" (2007).
"Number 79" (2000).
It was an inspiring day that also became about the experience. It was interesting to click with my mother on what I am interested in. After the museum, and hearing her stories of her knowledge on the museum, we pulled over and walked through a field of sunflowers at a farm. So much beauty was seen on that one day.
