Tilting at Windmills

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.