Last March I announced my intention to move my favorite statue, J. Seward Johnson's "The Awakening", from buddy ADG's house to space closer to mine. Ground preparation is coming along well, and an October 10th unveiling is scheduled. My prior offer of available rooms stands should you choose to attend.To get the locals excited about our new sculpture park, Mayberry has turned into a living breathing Johnson gallery. Twenty of his life sized bronze works have been scattered around the community.
It was a beautiful day yesterday, and Mrs. T and I went to see how many we could find.
This is my favorite. Titled, "Best Seller" it depicts a scene that is frequently found at The Park.
As we approached this, a little girl (2-3ish) was poking at him. She was absolutely conviced he was real, and was trying to wake him. No power on earth was going to convince her otherwise.
This obviously is "Midstream". I saw this in front of City Hall Monday, before I knew about the showing.
On our first trip we found 14 of the 20. Over the next few weeks I post more of the pix.
Lap of Choice
A Thought to Consider
Toad
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4 comments:
What great treasures. I truly thought the first picture was a "joke" -- until I saw the others.
Johnson is brilliant. About five years ago, the Corcoran Gallery had a series of Johnson figured vignettes that created in life size scale-a select group of Impressionist paintings. It was outstanding. LFG was completely fascinated with the comparison of the painting to the life-size vignettes. I was stoked and can only imagine what Johnson's work looks like through the eyes of a four year old.
ADG
Sadly, the Awakening was sold by DC to National Harbor and now sits in Oxen Hill Maryland near the Gaylord Convention Center and tourist trap.
These are witty and wonderful. How lucky you are to have these scattered throughout town.
They remind me of several trompe l'oeil paintings by Greg Brown that used to grace buildings in Palo Alto, California (my hometown). One depicted two burglars rappelling onto the awning of a downtown commercial building. Town lore has it that as soon as Brown finished the burglar paintings, the police emergency line experienced a rush of calls reporting the break-in!
Enjoy the show...
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