OH MY OMI!--Worthy Title for New York Sculpture Park
                                                                      "We're taking a day off!" announced Andy, as I cleaned animal cages and fed Tara's cats in New York on July 7th. "It's a time of leisure. We're driving to Ghent for the day at Architecture Omi and the Fields Sculpture Park."

Inside the gallery at OMI,
pieces of experimental art
boggle the mind and stimulate
the imagination.

Immediately I headed for hat and sun screen. This would be our third visit, and the first two had been on days in the mid-90's. Today would be another hot one.  Weather predictions called for gorgeous skies and temperatures in the high-80's.  The outdoor sculpture park in upstate New York's Columbia County, a not-for-profit organization, offers world-class public exhibitions, art events, education programming and international residency programs for visual artists, writers, translators, musicians and dancers. But it's all outside.
The advertising says that more than 2000 artists from 120 different countries have come to connect and create in the unique artistic community of Omi, and more than 15,000 visitors stop by each year to explore the edge of art.
I grabbed my camera and hopped in the truck.  Thank goodness we had driven Andy's vehicle with functioning air conditioning!

In the Wheat Field, Sue poses by
 de Jong's camera sculpture
North Meets East, South Meets West.

In three hours of walking the grounds of the Fields Sculpture Park, we viewed 63 different sculptured pieces of the more than 80 that are on display, including the map cover photograph sculpture of Charley Friedman's Squirrel Gang, done in 2015.  The whimsical parade of squirrels marching forward with flowers highlights the lawn right outside the Charles B. Benenson Visitor Center.
Contemporary and modern works that are on display are arranged in several distinct site locations, including rolling fields, wooded knolls and wetlands, on paths cleared for leisurely contemplation of sculpture in a natural environment. Lots of walking is a must!

Andy appears diminutive against
the dominant Arcs in Disorder.

We started in the Wheat Field at Isaac Witkin's In the Beginning, 1968. In the Wheat Field, the camera sculpture North Meets East, South Meets West by Folkert de Jong, 2014, temped me to take pictures. Not far away Andy admires the Arcs in Disorder: 4 Arcs x 5 by Bernar Venet. "This one I wouldn't mind having in the front yard," he said, "but I don't think it would fit too well. I think you photographed it before. Maybe we should consider it for Tara's house."
We both like the creation.  Oh, to own a REAL sculpture, but I'm happy with my chainsaw wood carvings.

Kim Beck's Flock of Signs
directs in every which way!

Perfectly positioned within the concrete,
Andy becomes part of the unnamed
sculpture in the Back Woods area.

The trail continued to the Back Woods section of the Sculpture Park. Here we saw repeated sections of white arrows by Kim Beck, pointing in every direction. Many were not even labeled, but the main display was titled Flock of Signs, 2014. One display with the largest arrows at an intersection of trails pointed straight up.
"It's really cool," said Andy.
Another concrete megalith would accent Tara's upper lawn perfectly. But we couldn't find a name to identify this beautiful piece of art as we strolled the paths of the Back Woods.
A large sculpture of old railroad ties dominates the area of Little Field. Propped up at one end, the ties form a regular pattern across the acres of grass. Ironically, the sculpture called Smoke by Richard Nonas, 2009, mimics the regular pattern of clouds in the sky.

Clouds add to the perfect picture at
Little Field as we explore Smoke.

"This sculpture is more manicured," commented Andy, noticing the closely cut grass. But a sign warned of nesting bees, so we didn't approach too closely. Of course, climbing and walking on the art pieces is not allowed, so skirting the edge was highly appropriate.
Cattails grew in abundance along the paths of Pond Woods. The sculptures were nestled among the trees and thick undergrowth, and many of them were from the 1990's, so we had seen them before.

Sue is dwarfed by monstrous metal loops of Picker Sculpture.

The Poplar Grove section of Fields Sculpture Park features an art camp for children. The nearby tents teemed with activity as kids created their own art pieces. We stopped at Dewitt Godfrey's Picker Sculpture, 2004, to check out the scenery from both directions.  I couldn't resist the urge to stand next to one metal loop just for the sake of size comparison.
As we followed paths in every direction, we missed the outskirts. The section called Far Afield (Talerico Road) led off the map, and the pieces on Residency Road were marked well north of the main trails.

Straight Line points
crookedly upward.

But Clover Meadow included some interesting pieces. Bernar Venet's Straight Line, 2000, certainly was straight, but the whole piece tilted to one side. I backed up several times just to get it in one picture, and I made sure I straightened the camera horizontally to do justice to the Straight Line sculpture.

Andy checks out the walk-in sculpture
by Rob Fischer at the Omi Pond.

Rob Fischer's Omi Pond House, 2016, rests on the algae-covered pond with a canoe beached on the bank. "It's really hot in there," said Andy. He didn't stay long.
Finally, we headed back to the Visitor Center Field with its collection of unusual shapes and figures. Andy particularly liked the "melted crayon" effect of Robert Melee's It Up and Her Leaving. "The solid black of It Up is so melancholy," he said. "I like that one even better than the colors of Her Leaving." Both of the huge semi-human figures seemed like someone had dumped buckets of melted Crayola down on them from the sky.

Two of a kind perhaps, both Andy and the
Walking Figure love to walk!

Andy mimicked Donald Baechler's Walking Figure. With the hot weather, we were tempted to mimic Baechler's Bathers nearby, as well. They were still semi-standing in water from the heavy rain the night before. We thought better of it though, since the drive home would be a long one.
We stopped at the Visitor Center for a cold drink of water before heading back to Tara's.  Dreams of creating our own lawn decorations danced in my mind as Andy drove southwest for an hour back to our country domain. Now I'll put him to work as an artist!  I wonder if he can sell anything...