Ricardo the cat

Yesterday, Ben and I hit up one of our favorite parks: Laumeier Sculpture Park. The park is so big that I don’t think we’ve ever covered all of its grounds. And that’s saying something; as a kid, I frequented the park almost daily for Art Camp.

Laumeier combines two of my loves: art and the outdoors. The perfect place to take a picnic and a blanket and just spend the day, the park is home to larger-than-life sculptures and winding trails. And, as we discovered, the world’s largest wood sculpture is there as well.

One of my favorite works is a cat. He is a mosaic with a nice little bench built right into him, which is where I enjoyed eating lunch during my Art Camp days. One of the most notable sculptures is a gigantic red one, made of huge metal cylinders. Its the size that has the impact. As you get closer and closer to it, you become aware of your infinte smallness. The same thing goes for the wood sculpture that boasts its bigness. It looks like the trunk of a tree, but has been carved in such a way to appear as if it’s been eroded by water. When you step up close to it, you know that other people have been there. Ben and I agreed that if we were the artist, we wouldn’t be terribly upset by this. What is the purpose of art if not to be a source of interaction? It’s the best way to reach people. The only thing to do with paintings is to look at them, but sculpture invites its audience to touch, explore, and really feel. That makes it all the more beautiful.

And on the side of the viewers, perhaps they want to make their own mark, and crude carving is the only way to do so.

Laumeier brings a smile to my face every time I visit. The scene is serene, and the art is profound-- somewhere in the forest is a number of wooden caskets, imitating those used by the Nazis for their prisoners. The image is haunting, and I sometimes have trouble looking at it. Art makes it real. But whether this reality is recognized in remorse from the graves or happiness from the mosaic cat, it exists. And the best part is that there are always parents with kids and teenagers with friends in the park. It is an integral part of life.

Don’t you want to join in?

Stay cool, St. Louis.