Art as a Frame, more art park, thank you

A dominant feature in the NC Museum of Art's Park is Gyre, 1999 by Thomas Sayre (American born 1950). I have photographed this work which consists of 3 ellipses before and posted a photo I took, some time ago on my blog. However, in the past I have concentrated on the shadows which are cast by the ellipses and photographed it as a whole work (shot included all 3 arcs). When I was at the park this week, it was completely overcast and the sun wasn't out to cast shadows. I found myself photographing the individual ellipses and in so doing I realized that they serve as a nice frame for the landscape.Each one frames an area on either side and I found it interesting to look at that and surprised that I had never done that before. In order to create this enormous sculpture, the artist developed a method of earth casting. A backhoe dug out the shapes in the ground and a mixture of concrete and iron oxide was poured directly into the trenches which were inlaid with steel bars. After curing for a month, a crane lifted each of the concrete forms up and lowered them into their positions.

To get a sense of their scale, the shot above is of the three arches with the art museum in the background. Although it's pretty dark, I think you can see how small the museum looks behind the arches. I enjoyed looking at the Gyre in a completely different way without my focus being on the impressive shadows they cast when the sun is out.The shot above gives a sense of how the Gyre fits into the landscape of the open part of the art park. The art park has a number of different habitats: forest bottomland, house creek, pond, prairie, and upland forest. My last post featured some of the art in the forest portion of the park. In addition to information on the man made art, there are signs to identify the birds, plants, trees, insects, etc. in areas of the park and they have some good programs for children.I think it is interesting that the museum is creating opportunities for artists, architects, landscape architects and environmental scientists to collaborate on projects in the park. A current project involves redesigning the pond and an artist is working with water quality engineers to create a new pond that cleans storm water, has space to hold groups for educational purposes, and stands on its own as art. I did snap a picture of the current pond but it wasn't a very good one so I'll have to go back as the new project unfolds and snap some more of the pond.Last but not least, thank you to Kat's Krackerbox for mentioning me for the E for Excellent blog Award. I posted about the Excellent blog award once before when Startinesky (another blogger whose site I enjoy) passed it on to me. I appreciated Kat mentioning me for it too, and wanted to say thank you. Kat participates in Weekend Snapshot one of the photo memes I participate in and I enjoy visiting her WS posts.