Franconia Sculpture Park

I went to the Franconia Sculpture Park a couple weeks ago with Urban Sketchers Twin Cities. This 50-acre park houses many sculptures around a prairie setting. You can read more about it and read about individual artists and their installations here: https://www.franconia.org/

It was a very hot and windy day, and I enjoyed looking at the sculptures. Though we were there about 3 hours, I chose only a few sculptures to sketch. Later, I came home and looked up the artist statements on the ones I could find on the website. I wrote in notes and quotes from the statements near my sketches, which helped me make more sense of what the sculpture was about. For instance:

I didn’t understand why the Lorraine Motel sign was in this garden, then I read about it and understood. I saw sculptures made out of metal, cement, signs, cloths, wire, wood, and parts of old antiques, buildings, and even mirrors. I think next time I’ll read more about the sculptures before I see them; it would give it more meaning as I sketched them.

In addition to sculptures, I saw a film crew filming the “Flying Foot Forum” dance troupe. I did a very quick sketch of a cameraman. His glasses perched up on top of his fabric-covered head, and he worked very quickly. The music and dancing was fun to watch!