The Awakening

Last week, I was dismayed to find out that "The Awakening" was sold. Some rich guy bought it for $750,000, and is moving it a half mile down the river, to the new National Harbor development in Maryland. I guess I can't really complain that he's moving it, but he plans on putting it on a very small section of beach, right smack in the middle of the dock area. Why not on solid ground? I have a terrible feeling this is going to end badly, like whenever we have a really strong storm. When I first saw The Awakening, I was a small child, maybe 6 years old. The statue had just been placed a few years earlier, and the area around the statue was still mostly grass. The power of seeing this massive giant digging himself up our of the ground was moving.

In recent years, they stopped re-planting grass between the sections of the status and instead covered the area with mulch. It is obvious why the park service would do this (to save money) when they didn't technically own the statute and it was in place on a permit that expired 25 years ago. But when I went to pay my final respects to the statue while it was still in Hain's Point, it was obvious that the mulch pretty much killed the statue's power. No longer is it a sculpture of a giant man pulling himself out of the earth, it is now a giant man digging himself out of a mound of dirt, or pehaps a grave. The mulch changes the atmosphere of the moment.

I think when the statue is moved to the beach, it will kill the idea behind the art even more. No longer is it a man trying to escape the earth, or even a fresh grave. Now he's a guy at the beach, whose kids buried him in the sand while he was sleeping and taking in the sun. I hope they reconsider and bury him in a park, or something. Even if it means you have to re-seed the darn thing every spring, PLEASE! Don't bury him in the sand.

Opening statement

What do you write for a first post on a blog in class with no time to put together a coherent thought? You post that its completely strange that its snowing tonight, but just 48 hours ago it was 75 degrees. Yup, posting about the weather... It's been a slow night.