A Symphony of Sculpture
Vermont artist Kathryn Lipke Vigesaa has been drawing chuckles with her sculpture on display this summer in downtown Lenox, Mass.: "Melt/Water" brings the beach to the Berkshires in an installation of two Adirondack chairs and a deck facing a triptych of water scene photographs — all of it on a patch of green grass adjacent to the town library. A speaker underneath the deck plays sounds of the lapping ocean.
I have an idea for a companion work, placed in beach territory, perhaps next to the library in East Hampton: a steep set of rock stairs, set up in front of a triptych of mountain vistas, with a soundtrack of leaves rustling.
Leave it to art to make up for deficiencies in the natural landscape, or simply to liven the scene.
Outdoor sculpture abounds in the Berkshires, from Louise Bourgeois's "Eyes," in front of the Williams College Museum of Art, to the garden gates designed by contemporary artists on the grounds of the Norman Rockwell Museum, to the saxophone sculpture hanging from a tree at Chesterwood, the home of the Abraham Lincoln memorial sculptor Daniel Chester French.
Sculpture has also found its way on stage. In "Broke-ology," Nathan Louis Jackson's wrenching play at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, actor Wendell Pierce befriends a garden gnome sculpture, placed in his living room by his sons, with moving and comic results. Properties artisan Joshua Hackett spent two weeks making the gnome, and it was worth the labor.
At Jacob's Pillow, audience members puzzled over the Martin Puryear work in a Garth Fagan piece: Was it a chord and electric socket, or a spatula? Neither, Mr. Fagan said; it's a garden hoe. (Mr. Puryear, by the way, was honored on Saturday at the sculpture paradise in the Hamptons at LongHouse Reserve.)
There was little room for interpretation of the Trojan horse that appeared at Tanglewood's gala; it was 10 feet high and made of wood and white shingles, with a mane and tail of ferns. Boston artist Jane Miller and the creative director of Louis Boston, Matthew Keller, designed the horse, cleverly blending Grecian and New England styles as a nod to the work performed that night, Berlioz's "Les Troyens." (The menu was also a blend, featuring grilled Maine lobster and baklava.)
In a region of art and nature, one sculpture dominates, and it is nature's own: the tree. A grove of trees was the backdrop for the gala in support of Aston Magna, a baroque music festival founded by Lee Elman.
Trees are hard to take home, but Ms. Vigesaa's work is for sale for $12,500.
agordon@nysun.com
