I spoke to an art school’s CFO a few weeks ago. He was giving me an impromptu tour of an out-of-doors art exhibit. We had stopped in front of a small stone arrangement sculpted from native New England granite. He turned to me and said, ” This sculptor really gets it about public art.” I thought I knew what he meant, but I asked anyway,” He understood that people were going to want to interact with it.”
I agreed with him and thought of some of the successful pieces of public art I’d seen over the past several years in urban spaces. The best don’t just sit there; they draw you in and involve you even if you don’t totally understand them. You get stunned by their whimsy, charmed by their composition, and even awed by the artist’s daring.
A few weeks late,r I was leaf-peeping in Burlington, Vermont, and spent some time in the arts district. Many of the buildings were adorned by not insubstantial works.
As a stranger to the city, I was amazed by what I saw. I was tempted to think about the fun of being a creator in such a challenging and fulfilling environment. It swept me back to the days when I had occupied a loft in an industrial building in Boston with other creators. Here is a brief gallery of what I saw. I hope to return and explore some more.
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