Studio Notes - May 2025: Grounds for Sculpture

. Human beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonders.

 – E.B. White

I am back in the studio after a REAL vacation. Mike and I traveled to Philadelphia and took a full week exploring art sites and playing tourists. 

I do mean "play," like we were kids again. I'll never forget the scene of Mike slipping into one of the displays at Grounds for Sculpture and posing for a photo. (And without any prompting from me either, I swear.)

Our Philadelphia trip was part of a Roads Scholar program, and we literally turned ourselves over to be shepherded by a guide for a week. We were accompanied by 20 other art enthusiasts. It was a first for us (usually fiercely independent types) and we had a blast.

Our first day was at Grounds for Sculpture, a 42-acre sculpture park and museum in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, about midway between Philadelphia and New York City. It was founded by Seward Johnson in 1992 with the goal of making sculpture accessible to the public. Johnson, the grandson of the co-founder of Johnson & Johnson, was the black-sheep of the family who preferred making art to doing business.

Today, the park features an evolving collection of over 270 contemporary sculptures by renowned and emerging artists, including many works by Johnson. The sculptures are set in an arboretum with thousands of trees and plant species. 

Here are a few scenes from our visit:

Seward Johnson's sculpture "Erotica Tropicallis" 2005. (Mike Griffin popping into the display in the second image.)

Roberto Lugo's 2022 sculpture "Put Yourself in the Picture." Roberto is a ceramic hero of mine who has work in major museums and is well-known for his advocacy in the field. I recognized the work from a distance and it was such fun to see his work translated into a "walk inside" sculpture.

Red Grooms sculpture "Henry Moore in a Sheep Meadow," cast bronze, 2002.

Barton Rubenstein's 2016 stainless steel sculpture "Harmonize" almost vibrated with reflected light as the sun broke through clouds on the day of our visit. 

On a more somber note:

This powerful scene confronts visitors at the entrance to the museum. It's a replicate of "Double Check: The Survivor," completed by Seward Johnson in 1982 and originally installed in Liberty Park in lower Manhattan.

At the time, the subject was a life-size bronze of a businessman sifting through his briefcase, seeming to make final preparations for an upcoming meeting in a nearby office building. But, on Sept. 11, 2001, the association that millions of people made with "Double Check" changed dramatically when a terrorist attack destroyed both towers of the World Trade Center.

The New York Times reported that rescue works approached the sculpture only to realize that it was not a man at all, but the sculpture covered in ash. Seward left visible all of the damage on the original sculpture and it was reinstalled on a granite bench in the plaza it had occupied before the attacks on Sept. 11. It remains there today.