Art is everywhere in New York, and not only in the abundance of museums and traditional show places. It’s in the way these parks reclaim nature’s power, slowly subsuming the very boundaries put in place to keep things out, and in. We stopped to examine the way this tree was slowly eating up the iron fence beside it. It was difficult to discern which came first. Perhaps they were both put in at the same time, and were just now coming to blows. Or maybe this is a melding of two entities long hoping to touch and intertwine. For now, it’s an interesting stand-off.
We reached the Village just as the sun reached its zenith. I knew Andy was struggling, and he said we had to sit down for a bit. It was a good time for both of us to sit in a park, right beside a statue of Mayor LaGuardia. Birds flitted about us as a nice breeze added comfort to the dappled shade. A little pool of calm in the midst of the chaos that is Manhattan. Somehow, its chaos is contained, like these little collections of street art – contained within the specific limitations of their physicality. Bound by the borders of a wall of a mail box, hindered by the gradual wear of winter winds and summer storms, the art here is fleeting, ever-changing.
It is as rough as it is rich. Layered in complexity and meaning beyond what a quick drive-by or pedestrian brush could fully reveal. It awaits revelation as much as it defies discovery, covert and overt at once.
These are the little surprises that call to everyone differently. Some don’t hear anything at all. Some hear the grandest symphony, the most lush flourishes from the universal chorus of the cosmos, come to sing their very own theme song.
There was one more surprise in store for us before we made it back to the hotel…
