Tilting at Windmills

My father and I shared two loves: basketball and art. The basketball part of things was obvious and ongoing for his entire life as a parent and for mine as a son. Our devotion to art, however, was more mysterious and developed over time. In fact, the latter was so unclear, I’m only now learning to see and appreciate it. This is a story of both loves and their magical interconnections.

In 2022 I was a writer in residence at Art Omi, a spectacular outdoor art park in the Hudson River Valley that features over three hundred acres of sculptures and works of architecture. One detail of Art Omi’s design is the thoughtful arrangement of the structures in relation to space and topography. The pieces are not close together, but they do connect via a series of trails that weave over hills, across streams, through thick woods, and around bends, enabling visitors to come upon wildly different sculptures hidden in adjacent pastures or behind trees. Every morning, I would go for a run through these fields. Coming across elegant structures and sculptures was thrilling. There were cool formations of mirrors hidden among branches and limbs, tiny houses almost buried between hills, clouds on stilts, tree trunks bent and shaped into something that looked like a hive. Best of all, every morning the fall sky, heavy with fog, endowed the landscape and the art within it a mysterious aura.

This is a premium subscription story. Please make a $4 donation to access the individual story or a $60 donation to access all the stories in Narrative Backstage for a period of one year.

If you are already a user, but not yet logged in, you may login here.
If you are new to Narrative, signing up is FREE and easy.