For the past five or six years my friend Kat and I have been going to the North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show at the Bennington Museum in Vermont.
We get there early in the morning, and always go after berry season is over so we don’t have think about meeting any bears.
Up the hill, past the wildflowers and berry brambles into the field. Then into the woods and returning through the flowers again.
My description of the path probably makes it sound longer than it is. It takes us about an hour to leisurely walk around, look at the sculptures and plants and talk about them.
Some of the sculptures held our interest longer than others, either because we liked them or we’re trying to figure them out.
Today we saw three or four sculptures that at first we didn’t think much about. But the more time we spent with them, looked at them and talked about them, the more we liked them.
“Ah, painted ladders,” I though when I first saw Resistance by Eileen Powers. But after reading the title and looking again, I now saw the free standing ladders as a symbol of coming together and standing strong in defiance.
Although there are usually some sculptures in the exhibit that are political, this year it seemed like there were more than ever.
It was the titles that often gave the sculptures meaning that I might have missed. Like Merzon’s hosta sculpture Hosta Luego, made of shovels and bolts. Where I saw not just a play on words, but a reference to the ICE raids and deportation of thousands of people.
Or Silvina Mizrahi’s round mosaics set in a semi circle on the ground.
I didn’t think to walk around them and really look at each one until I learned they were called “Under the Same Sun.”
