Walking to work earlier this year, the trees thick with a rime frost and my breath exploding in puffs of white as it hit the chilly air, I stumbled across a stunning work of art.
On a mound of snow about the size of a park bench, someone had laid out a large slab of ice. Upon it, like candles on an altar, the artist had stood a thicket of spiky icicles. Long and thin, short and fat, they glittered in the low morning light, mesmerizing to behold.
The frozen sculpture of crystal wasn’t in some gallery window or in a downtown park that featured public art; it stood in someone’s front yard. Instead of being crowded by other museum visitors or watched like a hawk by a security guard, I stood alone on the sidewalk, a steady stream of oblivious traffic racing behind me on South Street.
There are many benefits of living in a place that values art, and they often reveal themselves in surprising and exhilarating ways. Even as funding for the arts is decimated and subjects such as music, dance, arts and theater are increasingly seen as optional in our schools, the artists living in my Northampton neighborhood greet each season’s splendor in various places and in ways that can be deeply uplifting.
Months after the ice had melted, the meadows had flooded and spring had sprung, three more original works appeared along my path one May morning.
In the same yard where I’d seen the altar of ice, there was now a giant dream catcher woven from broken and twisted branches that had fallen during a recent storm. I can’t recall if it stood on a pedestal or hung from a string, but as I walked past, it filled my peripheral vision and forced me to stop and appreciate the skill and elbow grease that had gone into knitting the dry, rigid limbs into something so fluid.
Just beyond the old mansion on Lyman Street, a battered path runs through the woods and passes between a pair of granite obelisks before rejoining the street. It was once a magnificent drive that climbed the hill to the former estate—a home to two families who made their fortunes in silk—but many of the tall and mighty trees that once lined the avenue now lay across it, broken. As I trudged down the hill to work, a flash of color caught my eye through the still-dark trees.
A stone’s throw from the edge of the path someone had taken many, many yards of string and wrapped a cocoon around three slender adolescent trees. Like the strings on a harp, each strand was tightly stretched, and though placed closely together, the individual fibers didn’t appear to overlap. Each loop of string was a different color, and a full spectrum of hues, one gently blending into the other, ran from top to bottom. There was nothing inside the cocoon, and the forest floor around the work seemed undisturbed. It was as if the silkworms of yore had returned to spin their magic again. The forest loom remained most of the summer, slowly filling with blown leaves and getting plucked apart by creatures looking to line their nests and dens.
My path took me along Fruit Street and behind the new senior center, whose cupola made me think of that mighty mausoleum, the Great Pyramid of Giza (and in this case, of Conz Street). As much as the bright, open spaces inside are a welcome addition to a neighborhood short on gathering areas, the building’s architecture appears to have fewer frills than Jake’s Diner downtown. Nestled between a high rise and a community of attractive, two-story wooden homes, the building seems to be suffering an identity crisis: the sharply peaked, oversized roof tries to blend in with the homes, but the heft and bulk it shares with its other neighbor makes it look bloated, awkward and inelegant.
But that morning, crossing the parking lot out back, I nearly stepped on a third piece of ad hoc art. On a stretch of sidewalk, a giant mandala made from sand, grit, twigs, wrappers and bottle caps had been delicately detailed by hand. I could see the traces of the many fingertips that had gently scraped the dirt into piles and organized it into rows. I appreciated the great care that had gone into the crisp, geometric patterns formed in the dust, and I wondered at the time and attention the artists had spent, knowing a single storm or street sweeper would destroy it all forever.
I’ve yet to have quite such a convergence of inspiring artwork again on my walks to work, but all summer long, there’s always something new to appreciate. There are the lush gardens to watch as they grow, the sophisticated hen houses to admire, and the savory scents of barbecuing marinades to appreciate. The artists in my neighborhood are forever busy, and given the pumpkin flags that are now appearing above people’s doorsteps, soon I’ll be busy judging the competition for best jack-o-lantern.