Things_Places

Artwork by Bruce Zboray www.bruce-zboray.artistwebsites.com


I love stone walls.

I live in New England and pass many stone walls on my daily walk.

Some are very neat, crafted with an artistic eye and fitted very precisely in beautiful patterns, like big rock, little rock, little rock, big rock. They’re cemented together.

Did you ever walk through a place and feel that it was watching you?

Like in the woods where you walk at the foot of tall trees, far out of reach above. And if you are really lucky, you come upon a sea of green moss, furry and emerald green, tinting everything it lays upon. Or you come upon a patch of bluebells covering the forest floor – just happening to be there.

I am drawn to where the past lingers on, like Sturbridge Village Museum in Massachusetts, where people dress up in yesteryear clothes and character. It is truly amazing how these people fit their parts so well, as if being transported back 300 years.

Seeing the farmer in a long coat shepherding a flock of sheep thru the village green.

Seeing the potter casually spinning a clay pot.

Seeing the tinker making a lantern of tin or a candleholder of pewter.

Seeing how they cook in a hearth with an open fragrant log fire.

There’s something about a very old photograph that really draws me in. Perhaps it’s the black and white monochrome world that looks oddly “at a distance” – as if that’s the best that could be done at that time – almost like a dream.

I like to see how people are dressed and I try to sense how it felt to be in that place at that time. Did the air feel different?

Did you ever go into some place that had an echo?

It’s so hard not be a kid again. Just to play with it: clap, or say “hello”, or whistle, or stomp your feet.

I am so pleasantly surprised to find places that call you back to being curious, in the moment, childlike, wonder. The New York Botanical Gardens has a fabulous tunnel connecting two buildings that’s just perfect for making echoes. Perhaps it just happened that way. I’m grateful.

You just want to play with the situation. All else stops.