Grounds for Sculpture

I might be the type of girl who could have benefited from attending an all girls high school. Not because I was particularly boy crazy, but because once I had a boyfriend; I was done. Don’t get me wrong. I maintained an A average, stayed focused on the things I cared about (practicing violin three hours a day, working hard at my afternoon job), but when it came to high school, particularly my senior year, I checked out completely. It didn’t help that Lance graduated the year before me and I left school in the middle of the day to attend college classes.

The best part of my senior year of high school, aside from the day it was finally over, was art class. I had the sweetest teacher who created a rounded curriculum which allowed us to experience various art mediums while also slipping in details about the old guys who established the fundamentals of these mediums.

Possibly the best class trip I have ever taken was with this art class to Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton Township. We were a small class, so we packed into one of the 11-passenger school vans to make the 20-minute drive.

I couldn’t believe such a thing existed so close to home. Grounds for Sculpture was a living museum to me. It was paintings pulled beyond the matting and fancy frames, made into sculptures which could be touched and climbed on, making you a participant instead of a mere observer of art.

Our library offers museum passes to residents in our county. I’ve known this for a while, yet didn’t take advantage of it. Recently, I decided it would be a good thing to start taking Jon to the library and, after not entering our public library in over 15 years, I finally had a new, up-to-date library card, a stack of books to read with Jon, and access to museum passes.

Walking around Grounds for Sculpture with him brought back the nostalgia of my high school trip and the warm fuzzies of this class which was a beacon of light in my dreary senior year.

Truth be told, it’s a hard place not to find happiness. There are 42 acres to wander around, getting lost among nature and art. I’m no good with a park map on a regular day, but here, I didn’t concern myself with what we had or hadn’t seen, but with only what direction the wind blew us.