05/25/2002 - Grounds for Sculpture

After the stunning success of our first venture out of the apartment, we decided it was time for round two. The first original plan was to go to the smithsonian, but that was too daunting of a trip, plus it was memorial day weekend and the thought of contending with dc's alleged public transporation system while 8 billion people were celebrating their new-found patriotism was enough to postpone that trip yet again. The second original plan was to go the the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, but then we found out about Grounds for Sculpture. Located a scant 20 miles from our apartment, we were pretty excited to see 22 acres of rolling hills with random sculpture thrown in for good measure. Oh, and peacocks!

So, we headed out towards scenic Hamilton, NJ and as we got closer to the site we passed more and more random sculptures, it was kind of disturbing, in a good way, sort of like Gotham City from the Batman movies only much less epic in scale. Well, except for this fellow who absolutely towered above his surroundings:

Without further ado, here are the pictures, with commentary where appropriate...

past this weird chick who's inner skull was bronze we found a hammock, i was already very impressed...

this is a closeup of the snout of that last critter, there was a sign that said something to the effect of don't mess with cats:

these animal sculptures were in a circle around *something*, there was a door that led to that something:

we didn't know if we were allowed inside so being the clever fellow i am i took a picture under the door, this is what we found:

later we found out the the door just opened, go figure.

this was the first of the sculptures we found by Seward Johnson, which was meant to be a three dimensional version of a painting. Here's the painting:

and here's the sculpture:

another batch of sculptures based on paintings (first image is the actual painting):

there was a doorway and a corner, when you came around the corner there was a mirror, but at first you don't realize it's a mirror and you think yr looking at a sculpture, then you realize yr looking at yrself, so ofcourse you take a picture of you looking at yrself.

the only downside to a giant outdoor sculpture garden is the fact that it is outdoors. and bees live outdoors. and sometimes when you are taking a picture of a piece of artwork a bee flies right by yr head right as you are pressing the shutter button. then yr girlfriend laughs at you. what's sad is that the second non-bee picture isn't much straighter.