On Sunday afternoon, a view of the stick figures on a gravel bar in the Willamette.
Albany resident Nate Vanek has been busy this summer, adding stick sculptures to a gravel bar in the Willamette River. Let’s take another look at them before the river comes up and wipes them out.
Unlike Nate, or the anglers working off the mouth of the Calapooia Sunday afternoon, I didn’t want to wade into the current to get a really close look. So I had to content myself with viewing the works from the pier off the bottom of Broadalbin Street.
As near as I could tell, there were six of those creations. Looks like people wading out to that bar this summer, or floating by in boats, have left those works of folk art pretty much alone.
Consider it testimony to the value we place on a little bit of unexpected whimsy in an often humdrum world. (hh)
Similar to street art or guerilla sculpture, the purpose here seems to be placing whimsical pieces of “art” in a public space without official approval.
But what if a local artist created ten stick sculptures of Hasso Hering and placed them randomly in the Albany-Santiam Canal?
No doubt some would recognize the “art” as playfully quaint. Would that be okay?
Thanks for the show. Your my first stop every morning.
And a thank you as well, as you enjoy a glorious ride in our Fall weather – the gravel bar creatures are fabulous – and vanishing river art! And, Hasso, you are also my first look every morning on the ‘puter! You are a gem!